Everything OK
by Norroen Dyrd
Summary: A collection of somewhat loosely connected stories centering around one of my favourite pairings, that of my Dragonborn, Kiara the Redguard, and Ondolemar - which I lovingly shorten to OK. I realize perfectly well it's more than unorthodox - but love it or hate it, it has always been great fun to picture in fan art.
1. At first sight

'Oh, right,' Senna said sarcastically, her arms folded on her chest, her narrowed eyes registering, with glaring disapproval, each of Kiara's painful efforts to straighten her wobbly legs, 'Your head hurts, and you don't remember a single thing! Why, you drunken...'  
Kiara allowed the priestess's vehement tirade to trail off into silence; the meagre scraps of attention that she could muster - which was rather hard, what with the temple insisting on spinning round and round, making her ever so dizzy - were focused on the thing that she had lost all hope of encountering, the one thing that could still save her - on the altar of Dibella. With a tremendous strain of every inch of her limp, almost entirely lifeless body, she crawled up to the welcomingly glowing whatever-that-weirdly-shaped-purple-thing-was-supposed-to-be-called and pressed her burning forehead against its cool, soothing surface. Hardly had she mouthed a short, barely coherent prayer when with a burst of blinding light she finally felt it. Relief, blessed relief! The throbbing pain in the bite wound on her neck was gone, and so were the side effects of that foul fluid of Sam's; she gasped with joy as life force came rushing back through her veins, her limbs strengthening, her head clear as crystal, her usual cheerful mood back for what she hoped would be forever and ever and ever.  
She wheeled around and gave the astounded Senna a flashing grin.  
'I say, this place looks a frightful mess!' she cried, 'Did I seriously do it? Golly, I didn't think I had it in me! Well, let me help you clean up!'  
And, with a daring swish of her hair, she whizzed past Senna, who gaped at her blankly and pointed in the direction of a mop and bucket, words failing her.  
Kiara spent the next several hours scrubbing, and dusting, and sweeping up the most peculiar reminders of the previous wild night, and, just because she had got into the spirit of the thing, taking care of those parts of the temple that had needed cleaning long before she and Sam arrived. And all the time, while tackling cobwebs and moving furniture and relighting the candles, she chattered on and on and on, never pausing to catch her breath, making Senna wish her late-night visitor had not been revived from her sprawled, hung-over state.  
'You see,' Kiara told the mutely face-palming priestess, 'I was exploring the wilderness when those nasty vampires attacked me. They caught me completely unawares, and I mean unawares! There wasn't even a cave or ruin or anything nearby! Well, one of them leapt at me and dragged me off my horse - gosh, these fellows are strong! - and bit me before I could even figure out what in the name of the Ni- erm, I mean, the Eight, was going on. I kicked their pale undead butts, of course, but I knew I had been infected, and there was totally nothing I could do. I had no Cure Disease potions on me, and I was literally in the middle if nowhere, so finding a shrine to pray at wasn't an option either. So I was all depressed-like - which is a most unusual thing for me - and I just sat in a log like a brooding fungus and watched the sun go up. And when it did, I felt so sick I almost cried! And then I looked all around me, and saw all the beautiful, bright colours, and I thought, Gee, this must be the last time I see all this; it's soon gonna be nothing but night, forever, no sunlight splattered on the grass like a heap of gold coins, no birds singing, no green trees swinging to and fro over roaring waterfalls, glittering like ever so many diamonds! And so I trudged on and on, taking in every last littlest detail to keep it with me through all the endless nights to come... And then I came to Ivarstead, and stopped at the inn there. I wanted to check out, you see, if I had lost my appetite for normal food already. Because that would be another thing I would terribly miss. I've tasted blood a few times - my own, of course, when I got a split lip during a brawl or something - and let me tell you, it tastes nothing like sweetrolls! Well, I sat down at a table, and there was this Sam fellow, who offered me a drinking contest. And I thought, Why not? Heck, it's my last day as a human, might as well throw a great big farewell party! Annd... That's where things get kinda complicated... I think I passed out, and then I woke up here, at... Hey, this reminds me, what time it is?'.  
Senna, thankful for the blessed silence, was rather reluctant to break it.  
'I'd say the sun has already risen,' she replied at last.  
Kiara's eyes widened. 'Really? Oh my, I must get out there! I mean, I have to double-check that I'm not going to become a vampire, right?'  
She dashed out of the temple, throwing her cleaning paraphernalia carelessly into Senna's arms.  
'If you want to find that friend of yours, I'd suggest starting in Rorikstead!' the priestess called after her, but Kiara didn't bother to listen.

A Thalmor soldier ran up the broad, time-worn stone steps of Understone Keep, breathless and rather worried.  
'Justiciar Ondolemar!' he exclaimed, standing on ceremony in front of his superior, who was occupied with his usual restless pacing up and down the top level.  
'What is it?' Ondolemar snapped irritably, administering a well-aimed kick at one of the Jarl's dogs that happened to choose a spot right in the middle of his path for taking a nap.  
'There seems to be some disturbance in the streets, sir,' the soldier blurted out.  
Ondolemar raised his eyebrows. 'Oh, really? What kind of disturbance?' he asked coldly, taking great care to conceal the fact that in his imagination he was already picturing wild crowds of Talos worshippers on a riot that only he - naturally - would be able to suppress.  
'I really can't tell, sir,' the soldier replied falteringly, 'Maybe you, with your superior judgement...'  
Ondolemar cut him short with an imperious gesture. 'I get your point,' he said curtly, 'I will take a look at it myself'.  
The sight that opened before Ondolemar's eyes when he exited the keep, with the guard trotting at a respectful distance behind him, proved to be thoroughly disappointing. It was nothing like a riot of Talos worshippers - just one crazed young human female running through the streets, singing some nonsense at the top of her voice. As she passed by some of the townsfolk, she tugged demandingly at their hands, urging them to join her - but the only response she got were puzzled looks and distrustful grunts; the people of Markarth were used to blood and silver, not to laughter and songs. But eventually she was joined by a few children and beggars, who echoed the words of her song, out of tune but with most foolishly cheerful smiles on their faces.  
Having noticed the two sombre elven figures following her progress from the keep, the human girl paused to wave merrily at them.  
'I am so happy to be alive!' she cried, laughing, 'Aren't you?'  
'Human riff-raff,' the soldier remarked in his most obsequious manner, 'So primitive!'  
'Yes, indeed. So primitive,' Ondolemar repeated mechanically, painfully aware of the colour that rushed in a hot, stifling wave from somewhere around his heart up to his face when his eyes met the girl's.


	2. The longest journey: part 1

'Hey Ogmund - check this out!' Kiara swallowed the huge chunk of pastry she had been luxuriating in chewing, leaned closely towards her skald friend's ear, her blue eyes alive with dancing mischievous sparks, and, ignoring the disapproving growl of her faithful hound, who lay dozing in the firelight at her feet, half-whispered, half-sang, almost burying her face in Ogmund's mangy mane of grey hair,

_We drink to our youth,_

_To days come and gone,_

_For the elven oppression _

_Is just about done!_

_We will drive out the Thalmor_

_From this land that we own,_

_With our blood and our steel_

_We will take back our home!_

_Dominion's agents, _

_You aren't our kings!_

_In honour of Talos_

_We drink and we sing!_

'The ending is same as always,' she concluded, drawing away from the old skald and allowing herself to raise her voice to its usual cheerfully shrill pitch. Me and my friends at the Bards' College made it up, all by ourselves! Boy, was Vjarmo angry at us - because we kept everyone awake for hours, in the dead of night! They say brilliant ideas always come in the dead of night, but then again, I don't know if this is really that brilliant an idea; I need your opinion on this first... Personally, I never quite liked all that _drive out_ thing - for me, peaceful life all together is the way to go. But I still think it's pretty groovy!'

Ogmund checked her flow of speech with a good-natured pat on the shoulder, the look of his only eye both amused and a little concerned, 'One thing I can say for sure, lass: if you ever sing this in the streets of Markarth, Ondolemar will finally have someone to roast at the stake'.

Kiara's expression remained blank. 'Ondole-who?' she asked innocently.

Ogmund made a vague gesture. 'You know - the head Thalmor here. Skulks around the Keep all day, plotting ways to hunt down every last true son and daughter of Skyrim. Been after me for a while now, but I will see these Dwemer towers turn to sand before he lays his accursed elven claws on me'.

'Ah, him,' Kiara said slowly, her face lighting up with understanding as her mind conjured up the image of the tall robed figure, the haughty countenance, the broad stride of gilded boots across the stone floor of the Keep, the hard glint of amber-coloured eyes from beneath a dark hood. 'Yeah, I think I bumped into him once or twice - but that's it. I try to steer clear of the Thalmor - they don't smile back when you smile at them; and for me, that's a serious symptom. About the only business I ever have with them is saving their prisoners every now and then'.

As Kiara chuckled at her own words, the familiar evening noises of the Silver-Blood Inn - the clutter of tableware, the monotonous scraping of Hroki's broom, the muffled hum of drowsy conversation, and, of course, the occasional acid remarks that Kleppr and his wife fired at each other like duelling mages - suddenly died down, silenced by a piercing gust of icy wind that came rushing through the half-open door and sent a proverbial shiver down the spine of each of the inn's regulars, even though the weather outside was unusually warm for this time of year in Skyrim. Ogmund, who sat with his back towards the entrance, turned his head slightly to be able to look over his shoulder with his sighted eye; Kiara, nestled snugly in a chair opposite Ogmund's, strained her neck to see what was going on, for the skald was blocking her view; the hound at her feet stirred and pricked up his ears; almost instantly, the three of them, as well as the other inn regulars and the bewildered Kleppr, located the source of the penetrating chill.

It was certainly not a thing you saw every day - a Thalmor soldier deigning to leave the Keep and coming down to the local inn, of all places. The air seemed to grow dense with mute questions as the gold-armoured mer hovered on the threshold, his lips curled up in a grimace of disgust - as if he was reluctant to step forward for fear of getting his precious self dirty. Finally, he spoke, 'Which of you humans is Kiara the Redguard sellsword?'

Ogmund frowned and muttered through gritted teeth, 'Damn stuck-up elf. He can see perfectly well from where he stands that you lass are the only Redguard in the room. Must be showing us that human races all look the same to him'.

Kiara shrugged the old skald's hushed soliloquy off, too curious to find out what the Thalmor soldier wanted with her, and, leaping lightly from her chair, trotted up to him, followed at a small distance by the yawning, scratching, rather reluctant hound. For a few seconds, they scrutinized each other in silence, Kiara with her customary ear-to-ear grin of greeting, which she was ready to share with practically any inhabitant of Skyrim, the Thalmor with a look of disdainful incredulity, and the dog with a distrustful twitch of his nose and a small snarl.

'Kiara the Redguard sellsword,' the soldier repeated at length, clearly taken aback by the young human's cheerful, almost child-like expression - something which does not usually go with a calling such as hers.

'That's me!' Kiara's grin grew several degrees broader. 'Though I also go in for magic a little - I take a course at the College of Winterhold, in Alteration, Restoration, and basic Destruction and Illusion... no Conjuration for me, oh no! Making dead bodies do things for you... that's way too gross! Anyway, what I was trying to say is - this kind of ought to make me a spell-sellsword... or a sell-spellsword...'

The soldier's left eyebrow twitched in a not too promising way.

'You are to come with me to the Keep,' he said dryly. 'Justiciar Ondolemar wants to have a word with you'.

'So, what happened to steering clear of the Thalmor?' the dog asked quietly, climbing up one of Markath's many flights of stone steps in Kiara's wake.

'Hush, Barbas,' she replied light-heartedly, 'You know I contradict myself all the time... And besides, I've always been curious how long it might take to make friends with one of these guys.'


	3. The longest journey: part 2

The Thalmor soldier alone had been bad enough, but being exposed to his superior made Kiara feel as if she had just taken a dip in the Sea of Ghosts - of which she instantly informed her four-legged companion, who had followed her to the Keep despite all the meaningful glares of the Thalmor soldier. Ondolemar regarded her more than audible complaint as one might regard the buzz of a gnat, and proceeded to shower her with even more iciness, pacing up and down along his usual route on the top of the Keep's stairs, his hands thrust behind his back, his lips barely parting to let words come through, as though he was reluctant to waste the treasures of his speech on a human, 'My duty demands that I travel to a certain remote location in the wilds of the Reach. Naturally, the very notion of my travelling alone is inconceivable, a high-ranking member of the Thalmor that I am. My life is an asset of greatest value, and I require personal protection - which will be provided by you'.

Kiara blinked several times, a bit at a loss what to say. Much unlike her typical employers, this 'snotty bloke in a fancy hood', as Barbas had called him under his breath, was not as much asking for her help as informing her of what she was obliged to do; she was not quite used to that. Receiving no reply, Ondolemar slowed down his incessant pacing and glanced at the sellsword and her hound over his shoulder. 'That_ is_ within your capacities, isn't it?' he asked, his voice deliberately slow. 'The Jarl seems to trust you with menial tasks like clearing out Forsworn camps and hunting down vagrants with bounty on their heads...'

Kiara scratched her head thoughtfully.

'Bodyguarding a Thalmor... That's, like, the oddest job I've ever been given - that is, if you don't count the time when I had to steal a prize-winning goat from a giant that I myself had sold it to, because a Daedric Prince in disguise had tricked me into drinking myself into a state when I couldn't tell how many fingers I had on my hand - and I must say, normally, I don't drink at all... Well, I do drink water, of course... And milk... The Nords seem to have a grudge against milk and all who drink it, but it's just so tasty! Especially when it's warm... Goes wonderfully with sweetrolls...'

Ondolemar came to a sudden halt and, for the first time since Kiara was brought to him, deigned to look her straight in the face. After a long mute deadlock between the blue of her eyes and the amber of his, he turned away again and finally said, his voice a bit strained, as if he was struggling to maintain his customary arrogant tone, 'I require your sword arm, not your tongue. Understood?'

Kiara nodded silently, with a small discomforted gulp.

'And one more thing,' Ondolemar added, resuming his pacing. 'You will leave the dog behind. I detest dogs'.

Kiara, who had been a little stupefied by having to endure Ondolemar's glare, swiftly came to her senses and blurted out, 'No way! Not Barbas! He is my favourite sidekick! I never go anywhere without him! And I mean it! Besides, he has only been a dog for the last two hundred years or so - and he talks!'

'Oh, he talks, does he?' Ondolemar echoed. 'Well, that changes everything!'

Kiara beamed, 'Of course it does! I'm sure the two of you will become the best of friends!'

Her cheerful exclamation was met with an exasperated sigh.

'I was being sarcastic,' Ondolemar said, his tone once again Sea-of-Ghosts-like. 'But what could I expect? You lower beings do not understand sarcasm'.

'Hey fella,' Barbas piped in, 'I don't like your attitude. Why do you need us anyway? Don't you have your own soldiers?'

'They are needed to maintain order in the Keep and in the city,' Ondolemar explained, somewhat reluctantly - he was clearly not accustomed to relating his plans to a dog, even to a two-hundred-year-old, talking one. 'And I cannot trust any local mercenaries - every ounce of hired muscle in this, uh, hold is paid for by the Silver-Bloods'.

'Oh, so we are your only option, right?' Barbas bared his teeth in a sly grin. 'Then _we _make the rules, buddy. Either you let Kiara here guard your sorry Thalmor hide the way she sees fit, which is with her waggling her tongue and me doing my sidekicking - or you guard your sorry Thalmor hide yourself, and save it from the things that go lurking in the night. This is our deal - take it or leave it'.

After a long and heavy silence, in a voice filled with the stewing venom of suppressed rage, Ondolemar announced his decision to 'take it' - and the trio exited first the Keep and then the moonlit stone maze of Markarth's streets, on into the awaiting wilderness.

'So, you had a horse waiting for you at the stables? Neat! Don't like travelling on foot, huh?' As Ondolemar and Kiara climbed into their mounts' saddles just outside the city gates and set off on their journey, moving slowly side by side, the friendly Redguard decided to start the flow of the genial small talk she was so good at. 'What's his name? My horse's name is Spidey - that is, I called him that because he can totally climb sheer vertical rock walls... But I have no idea what his real name is, because I found him in an icy gorge up in the mountains, next to his master's overturned cart, fighting off the bandits that had killed the poor kitty... Must have been one of those Khajiit merchants, ambushed in the wilds...'

Ondolemar waited for her to pause for breath, barely containing his rising impatience, and then, without a word, leaned over and thrust into her rein-free hand a folded sheet of parchment that he had fished out of his saddlebag. As far as Kiara could make out by the uneven light of a floating orb she had conjured before mounting Spidey, it was a map of the Reach, meticulously compiled, with one location circled in a bold stroke of red ink. And though Ondolemar's face remained rigid and mask-like, a frozen image of arrogance below a gold-rimmed hood, and his voice betrayed no emotion when he said, 'This is my destination,' his gloved hand seemed to have acquired a mind of its own, obstinately lingering on the parchment, in a position where it just barely touched Kiara's fingertips. In a few moments, however, he regained control over the rebellious limb and jerked it back hastily, as though stung. Kiara noticed nothing, too absorbed in inspecting the map.

'Oh, I know this place,' she said interestedly, her explorer's instincts beginning to awaken, 'It's gotta be in the hills somewhere. A Forsworn redoubt, from the looks of it... Why on earth would you...'

Her curiosity was to remain unsatisfied, for just at that moment Spidey sniffed loudly at the air, pressed back his ears and reared to his hind legs with a neigh of warning, which was soon followed by another sound, a sound that rang through the wilderness, shrill and ominous, making Kiara stuff the map carelessly beneath the belt of her armour, reach out for her bow and quiver of arrows, which were fastened to her saddle, and lift herself up in the stirrups, her face intent like that of a school child working on a written task. It was the call of a dragon.


	4. The longest journey: part 3

After alerting his rider like a good trusty steed that he was, Spidey quickly steadied himself - having been through thick and thin together with Kiara and Barbas many times, he must have regarded the great dark bulk descending rapidly in front of him, with an ear-splitting swoosh of its wings, as something not too out of the ordinary - but Ondolemar's horse was positively terrified. As the dragon landed on the top of a nearby rock, with the customary thud and whirl of dust, the poor beast lurched away from it, eyes bloodshot and bulging, and kicked and pranced and pranced and kicked till Ondolemar could barely hold on.

'Looks like it's time for some hide-saving,' Kiara muttered, noticing the unfortunate Thalmor perform a neck-breaking acrobatic stunt on horseback, just after she had managed to plant an arrow in between the scales of the dragon's neck. 'Hey Barbas! Be a good pup and distract the big baddie for me!'

'Will do!' Barbas barked cheerfully in reply - and, with a determined wag of his tail, he trotted up the rock on which the dragon sat perched, nostrils flaring, claws scraping at the stone, and started strolling, cold-bloodedly, almost casually, just a few steps away from the _'big baddie'_'s snout. In the meanwhile, Kiara leapt off Spidey's back - the good loyal steed immediately charged off to help Barbas, who was being thoroughly frozen to the bones with a dragon breath attack - and, having let a blossom of bluish light unfold its petals in the palm of her left hand, cast the readied spell at Ondolemar's horse. When the calming magic took effect and both the mount and the rider were finally able to catch their breath, Kiara crossed her arms on her chest with a satisfied air and said, grinning toothily, 'How's that for you? Am I a swell bodyguard or aren't I? A single spell from little old me - and you and your horse get to keep all your verte... vertabre... whatever. By the way, did you ever find it odd that you can't use magic on horseback?'

At that point in Kiara's prospectively endless speech, they were joined by Spidey and Barbas, who reported, panting a little, 'The dragon has flown off. Became interested in a bear or something. These blokes seriously have the attention span of a three-year-old! And they say that they used to be highly intelligent! Something must have happened to their brains after all these centuries of sleep. Everything all right at this end?'

Kiara gave a vigorous nod, 'The D.I.D has been assisted'.

The movement of Ondolemar's eyebrows was slight, but the question in it was more than evident.

'D.I.D. is short for Damsel In Distress,' Kiara elaborated genially. 'Because you've got to admit - but for that bunch of hair on your chin, you look _a lot_ like a damsel!'

Barbas glanced at Ondolemar, as though assessing his damselishness - and snickered. Kiara snickered somewhat louder. And together, they allowed their snicker to become an open, hearty laugh, which steadily grew heartier and heartier till it was no longer a laugh but a real, full-blown guffaw, Barbas rolling on the ground with his legs in the air and Kiara clutching at her stomach and screwing up her eyes. His face rapidly reaching the proverbial colour of a sheet, Ondolemar grabbed Kiara tightly by the shoulder with one hand, making her straighten herself up and look at him, still laughing, and brought his other hand forward with a loud, ringing 'slap!'.

The laughter in Kiara's eyes died down like an extinguished bonfire. For a while, she stared into Ondolemar's hardened, twisted face, her eyebrows arched piteously, allowing the blood from the scratches on her skin - he had purposely struck her with the side of his glove where there were spikes - to draw thin dark lines along her cheeks. Just like for the first time, Ondolemar found himself unable to endure Kiara's gaze for long; tearing himself away from the shimmering, tear-filled blueness, he mounted his horse and rode off, without a syllable of explanation. And just as he did so, the twin moons slid behind an enormous, shroud-like cloud, and the figure of the hooded rider quickly dissolved in the pitch blackness, leaving the girl, the horse and the dog standing silently side by side, staring into nothing.

'The fool,' Barbas remarked at length, 'It's the dead of night and you have his map. Even if he decides to go back to Markarth, he may easily get lost. And oh, he seems to have headed in the direction of that bear I told you about'.

'Well then,' Kiara said, wiping off the blood and the tears, her mood appearing to clear together with her face, 'Let's do some more hide-saving!'

Barbas gave her a disapproving look. 'You don't mean... After what he just did...'

'My conscience is not a weapon rack,' Kiara replied firmly, 'It shouldn't have things hanging on it. Especially nasty things. Like injuries or deaths. So come on. Let's catch up with our D.I... I mean, Justiciar What's-His-Name'.


	5. The longest journey: part 4

The dragon had just finished plucking at the unfortunate bear's bones when it became aware of the presence of two other beings. It turned its head slowly towards the approaching figure of a joor on horseback, and as it did so, the wound from the arrow, still firmly lodged between its scales, sent a pulsing wave of pain through its neck; enraged, the great beast spread out its wings, soared into the moonless sky and breathed out what could well have qualified as a small blizzard. The joor unmounted, shielding his face from the piercing cold, and shot at the hovering dragon with a dazzling lightning bolt. While he was preparing a second blast, as well as spreading out a magical ward in front of himself, his horse, finally riderless, swished its mane defiantly and galloped off, clearly too concerned with putting as much distance between itself and the dragon as possible to care for its master's plight.

The struggle was fierce but rather brief; previously weakened by the pain in its neck wound and dealing with the bear and now drained of its life force by shot after shot of sizzling blue and purple, the dragon tumbled down to Ondolemar's feet, breathing heavily through its half-open mouth. The Thalmor stepped back hastily, not too willing to linger for the next round of the fight (though he did allow himself a few moments of silent triumph, which is something that anyone who had just gravely injured a dragon would have done - even someone with much lower opinion of him- or herself than Ondolemar). As he finally started to move away from the heaving mound of scaly flesh, he discovered, much to his irritation, that, even though he had relied on the special powers granted by his High Elf blood, casting lightning bolts and sustaining a ward at the same time had left him completely drained of magical energy and unable as much as to cast a simple spell to light his way. And naturally, all his supplies, including restorative potions (and food, for that matter, for, much as he hated to admit that the Altmer, and especially the Thalmor, had the same base instincts as humans, he was beginning to get hungry) were gone together with his horse - that four-legged coward that had been unable to suffer through a double dose of dragon fighting. All these misfortunes were well worth pondering over, and while you are pondering over something - in the night-time darkness, too - you don't often mind your step; so it is really no wonder that after a while of walking through the sleeping wilderness, Ondolemar lost his foothold and tumbled down into the emptiness that had suddenly opened beneath the soles of his boots.

'This was the most unepic dragon encounter _ever,'_ Kiara said sulkily as her scaly adversary, who had finally met its end after just a couple of her arrows found their target, burst into the usual flames. 'I shoot at it a little, it flies off, I meet it again, shoot at it a little, it dies. I didn't even hear voices singing _Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin_ inside my head!'

Barbas was about to console her with something philosophical, but since the wilderness is a densely populated place, the dialogue was yet again interrupted - this time by the sound of footsteps - and raised voices, too. Kiara's eyes grew round with eager interest; extinguishing her magical source of light, she gestured for Barbas to take cover behind a prickly bush - a little bit too prickly for the hound's liking - and froze in an awkward pose, knees bent and back pressed against a stone, while Spidey moved obligingly from the shadows into even deeper shadows and stopped munching on the tuft of dry grass he had torn out for himself while watching Kiara finish off the dragon.

The voices steadily came closer and closer, and very soon the watchful trio was able to discern separate words.

'Watch yer step, Bartie, or ye'll fall int' ar own pit'.

'I still think the pit was a bad idea'.

'Gar, ye thinks all me ideas be bad! I tells ye, I seen it done loads o'times in other 'olds - gang digs up pit, folks comes by, folks falls in, gang takes loot. Sometimes, they has spikes in 'em - them pits, I means - so folks dies. Methinks we oughta put spikes in ours too'.

'This is ridiculous! Who on earth will ever fall into this precious pit of yours? A blind drunken Forsworn?'

The voices fell silent for a while, then there was some scraping and rustling, so loud and close that Kiara could have sworn that if she stretched her hand forward into the black nothingness, her fingers would surely brush against the (most likely unshaven) faces of Bartie and his companion... And then, all the scraping and the rustling died down abruptly, and one of the two bandits, still invisible in the darkness, whistled in surprise.

'Well, what do you know!' Bartie exclaimed. 'I guess I was wrong after all! We did catch someone! Darn, I wish we had a light...'

As if specifically in answer to his request, something small and roundish, with a long glowing tail, appeared out of the night murk and glided softly over the heads of everyone on the scene like a bright blue comet, finally revealing the bandits and Kiara's team to one another. By its ghostly light it became apparent that Bartie was a middle-aged, balding Breton; as for the rough-voiced advocate of pits, he turned out to be, not too surprisingly, an extraordinarily hairy Nord. The two of them were standing, bent in two, their hands on their knees, and staring down into a large, deep pit, opening like a greedy mouth at their feet; when the tailed something passed between them, with a gentle tinkling sound, they looked up and met the gaze of Kiara, who, for want of anything better to do, waved her hand at them. Being quite common, run-of-the-mill sort of bandits, they would have immediately attacked the rather awkwardly grinning girl and her two four-legged friends - but for one thing. The little comet that insisted on circling round and round, casting its glow on the five silent figures separated by the pit, was a Wisp. And like all good children, Wisps never leave home alone, without their mother.


	6. The longest journey: part 5

'Barbas, you silly!' Kiara cried out, grabbing frantically at the hound's fur as he snapped at the trailing, mist-like veil wrapped round the shoulders of the ghostly woman that hovered in front of him. 'It's just a shade! The real one is...'

She choked on the words 'Right behind us' and leaned forward, her expression suddenly blank, letting go of Barbas and clasping her hands round a shard of ice that had pierced her stomach. The wisp mother glided over her, peering down with a malevolent smile playing on her pallid lips - but hardly she had reached out towards Spidey, her fingers clawing on air as if trying to drag the poor horse closer, Bartie screwed up his eyes, yelled something incoherent and fired at her with what could very well have been the only spell he knew. The wisp mother hissed and writhed, slowly but steadily melted away by the jet of flames directed at her chest, like a statue sculpted out of ice. When she finally dissolved into a cloud of bluish vapour, the Nord, who had been gaping at his fellow bandit in mute astonishment, nudged him hard in the ribs, making him tear his eyes open and survey the fruit of his labours, gasping for breath and trying very hard to keep his jaw from dropping. 'I... I really did it, didn't I?' he asked at length, his voice faltering, half-strangled, almost inaudible. 'I killed a goddamn wisp mother!'

'That you did, my friend!' Kiara had staggered to her feet and gone up to Bartie and was now giving him a hearty handshake, while healing herself with her free hand; her countenance was once again fresh and cheerful, as if she had been hit by no ice spikes whatsoever. 'And you were pretty awesome at it, too!'

Bartie's eyes narrowed. 'All right,' he said, grabbing hold of Kiara's amicably outstretched arm over the elbow and thrusting it behind her back, jerking his head slightly in a mute command to his Nord accomplice to bare his axe. 'Hand over your stuff and we can pretend this little meeting never happened'.

Barbas growled, scraping warningly at the ground with his claws. Kiara shook her head, 'Don't go all defensive,' she whispered. 'I've got it covered. So, you want my stuff?' she went on, in a louder tone, almost blinding Bartie and his pit-loving companion with the radiance of her broad grin. 'Go on and help yourselves! It's all in Spidey's saddlebag. Take care, though - some of it is really heavy'.

Bartie squinted at her distrustfully and, after a few moments of deliberation, gave a slow, meaningful nod to the Nord, who lowered his weapon, tiptoed clumsily up to Spidey and tugged at the saddlebag, his whole air tense and hesitant, as if he was afraid the worthy steed might take his rummaging to heart and hinder this invasion of his privacy with a good kick or bite.

'Are you out of your mind?!' Barbas choked. 'Giving away all our hard-earned loot to these cutthroats - just like that?!'

'Oh, come on!' Kiara said brightly, watching, with mild, good-natured curiosity, the two bandits (Bartie had joined the Nord, somewhat reluctantly, after an impatient 'Gimme a 'and, will ye?') unload bulky dragon bones, oddly-shaped potion ingredients, metal ingots of every possible colour, loudly clanking pots and pans, reams of neglected correspondence, sparkling handfuls of precious stones and soul gems, and a couple of severed hag heads. 'One of these cutthroats just saved me from a wisp mother!'

Barbas snorted. 'He wasn't thinking about saving you - he was thinking about staying alive! Come on, you can't be serious about this!'.

Kiara scratched her head, suddenly thoughtful. 'You know, you are kinda right... Hey fellas!' she called out to the two bandits, who had been bending over their ever growing heap of booty and wheeled round with a violent start, only to be once again blinded with a large portion of toothy radiance. 'Since I am being so nice to you and all - maybe you can do something for me too, huh?'

'What do you have in mind?' Bartie asked suspiciously, flexing his fingers.

Kiara rolled up her eyes and began to draw dreamy spirals on the ground with the tip of her boot, her thumbs thrust nonchalantly below her belt, 'Well... How about... I get to have your captive?'

Bartie and the Nord exchanged looks that did not seem to promising. 'No way,' they said in a very determined chorus.

'Way,' Kiara objected calmly.

'Says who?' the Nord growled.

'Says me!'

Even though her arm still hurt from Bartie's grip, she still made a remarkable performance, dodging the heavy blows of the bandits' fists (Bartie must have been low on magicka and so decided to support his friend in a good old-fashioned brawl) and managing to punch them several times before they as much as started considering the possibility of counterattack.

'I really don't like it when I have to use my fists,' Kiara sighed, fishing a handkerchief somewhere out of her pockets and dabbing with it at the Nord's split lip. 'I am so good at it, you see, that I always end up beating someone up. Though sometimes it really is the only way - like with that thug they sent after me when I was trying to sort things out in Markarth... It all started when I went to the market to buy some meat for that delightful new recipe - at the time I didn't know what kind of meat Hogni sells at that stall of his, and...'

'You are getting carried away again,' Barbas cut in. 'Let's return to the business matter at hand', he turned to the bandits. 'Are you or aren't you releasing the poor sod you caught in your oh-so-ingenious pit trap?'

Bartie nodded weakly, too occupied with nursing a bruise on his forearm.

'Splendid,' the hound bared his teeth in a smirk of satisfaction. 'Now - shoo! Scatter! We don't want anyone breathing down our necks while we think what to do with our new... loot'.

The pit-digging duo picked up all they had found in Spidey's saddlebag and hurried off - Kiara's unexpected skill in unarmed combat had made them miraculously obedient.

'You are a lousy trader,' Barbas declared, trotting up to the pit's edge. 'I handled the negotiations for you, of course, since I am such a swell business partner - but I still think you could have just used your wonder-fists to get back all our... Sweet baby Talos!'

'What is it?' Kiara asked with child-like eagerness, leaping up to the hound and peering down together with him. After a second or two of stunned silence she threw back her head and let out a shriek of laughter. Slumped against the pit's wall in a most awkward position, barely visible in the uneven light of breaking dawn, lay Ondolemar, his splendid gilded robes torn and soiled, his right leg bent unnaturally beneath his body, and his eyes blazing in the murk like two yellow bonfires. 'Help me get out of here,' he said breathlessly, looking up at Kiara when she finally stopped laughing, 'So I can kill you'.


	7. The longest journey: part 6

'Wait, you seriously want to kill me?' Kiara asked with a small giggle, letting go of Ondolemar's hand after all her pulling, and panting, and crying out words of encouragement finally produced the necessary result and the more than dishevelled Thalmor emerged out of the pit, unsheathing his mace the moment his feet touched firm ground.

'No one...' he replied, his voice hoarse and strained, most likely from the pain in his injured leg, 'No one... lives... after seeing... a Thalmor humiliated'.

'Look at you!' the warm glow of laughter in Kiara's eyes grew dimmer, just as when Ondolemar had slapped her - but this time it was replaced by a look of sincere pity. 'You can barely stand up! Let me take a look at that leg of yours.'

_'You are not touching me!' _Ondolemar spat out, giving a kick to Kiara, who had knelt before him, her hands reaching out towards his boot, - or rather, making a slight kick-like movement in her direction and then biting hard into his lips, pierced by a sharp surge of pain. She looked up at him in friendly reproach, 'Come on! I understand that you are mad because falling into a pit is such a totally uncool way of getting hurt - unlike, say, fighting off a vampire or two dozen, which happened to me once, by the way; I really should check up on those Dawnguard people sometime... - but this doesn't mean you don't need healing! And oh, how _did _you manage to get yourself in there in the first place? Because, come on...'

'It's none of your concern,' Ondolemar replied absently, glancing around, torn between the urge to sit down and give his wildly throbbing leg a rest and the fear of getting his robes grimier than they already were. Finally, pain got the better of him, and he lowered himself slowly onto the short, spiky grass and deigned to remember that Kiara was still there, still kneeling, watching his every move with intent interest, like a child poking its tiny nose into the affairs of adults.

'I am perfectly capable of healing myself, far more effectively than you could ever have done,' he declared pompously, readying a gold-tinted, gently tinkling spell. 'And stop breathing at me, it's extremely irritating!'

As he spoke, his eyes blazed with a mute order for Kiara to move as far away from his as possible. In truth, he found such close proximity to her discomforting mainly because it filled him with a most peculiar sensation -almost as if he had drunk a gobletful of wine a bit too quickly; and the discovery of this odd symptom troubled him to no small extent.

But Kiara had no way of knowing this. 'Oh, fine!' she sighed, getting up. 'Then I think I will go and catch us some breakfast, since those bandits took most of my yummies together with my loot. They did leave me my bow and sword, though - which is kinda weird for bandits, if you ask me. All in all, I think they were lame bandits - and speaking of lame: after you are done with your leg, I think you might wanna, you know, wash yourself and your clothes. There should be a creek nearby... I expect you are used to servants doing this stuff for you, but unless you want Barbas here to dress up as a chambermaid - I think he will look cute in an apron, actually - you will have to do all the washing yourself. Which reminds me, have I ever told you the epic tale of Farkas' dirty footwraps? Oh, what am I saying! Silly me! Of course I couldn't have told you! I promised to Tilma I wouldn't tell anyone...'

'Just... go,' Ondolemar said wearily, closing his eyes.

'Gone already!' Kiara beamed, disappearing into the wakening wilds with a final cheerful wave of her hand.

She returned a little more than an hour later, dragging behind her a leg of venison and brandishing some kind of furry garment, like a victorious warrior waving a flag. Barbas rushed towards her with a bark and a vigorous wag of his tail, greeting her as is custom among dogs, two-hundred-year-old or otherwise, and at the same time barring her way to the clearing round the pit, which apparently was to become their campsite for the coming day.

'Trust me, Kiara my friend,' he said, giving her a very meaningful look, 'You don't wanna see this. Unless you look forward to having a bad-tempered naked Thalmor chase you around with a lightning bolt in one hand and a mace in the other.'

She made an odd sound, rather resembling a cross between a sneeze and a chortle,_ 'You don't mean...?'_

'I do', Barbas nodded gravely. 'Your so-called employer almost cut me to pieces. Turns out the water is too cold for him. Well, I told him to take it up with Kynareth, which it would be completely in his character to do... To cut a long story short, I somehow managed to shove him into that poor unfortunate creek, but he is still refusing to do anything about his mess of a robe. Apparently, he won't as much as touch it because it is too dirty - but lower beings like you or me can't touch it either, because it's too godlike for us'.

'No worries,' Kiara grinned, with an extra vigorous wave of her unusual flag. 'I've got this lovely set of Forsworn armour right here with me! We were after the same deer, see, this forager fellow and me, and I offered him to go halves, because sharing is caring and all that... but for some odd reason, he instantly forgot about the deer and charged at me instead... These random-encounter-with-hostile-character things really get to me - these guys never leave me any choice... Anyway, though looting dead bodies has never been my thing, I took this Forsworn's armour, in case Ondole-whatever might need something dry to change into. Now,' she squatted beside Barbas and handed him her battle spoils, 'Maybe you will be a good doggie and bring this swell outfit to him... I'm afraid if I see him the way you say he is, I might get all giggly, and you know this never ends well...'

'Yes, of course, sacrifice Barbas!' the hound muttered, as far as he could with his mouth full of Forsworn armour. 'He makes me giggly too, you know!'

'Of all the humans I've ever dealt with, you are the most incompetent, brainless, undisciplined...' Unfortunately, Ondolemar's indignant tone utterly failed to produce the necessary impression when combined with his brand new Forsworn-esque look (which he highly doubted was the best alternative to splashing naked in icy water) so the only reaction he got from Kiara, as she looked up from scrubbing at his robe, which he had finally surrendered, together with his gloves, was a good-natured 'Oh, really?'

'Don't _Oh, really_ me, you little piece of filth!' Ondolemar's admirable High-Elven composure must have died a hero's death somewhere between his fall into the pit, his awkward attempt at bathing and his stuffing himself inside a most barbaric furry garment several sizes too small. 'In a few hours you have managed to make me look like a fool so many times that I am beginning to doubt if this is really me!'

Kiara squinted at him with a sly smirk, 'You certainly seem kinda different in this armour. But don't worry, I still think you are cute. Really!'

Ondolemar inhaled loudly, his fingernails piercing deep into his palms. After such a blatant insult, he felt that he was dangerously close to tainting his perfectly golden skin by strangling the human wretch with his bare hands... And at the same time, in his heart of hearts, he knew that, no matter how many death threats he might fling into her round, friendly, smiling face, he would never carry them out.

'Breakfast's ready!' barked Barbas, who had been watching over the venison, roasting on an impromptu spit over a likewise impromptu campfire, while Kiara was doing the washing.

Bartie and his pit-loving friend had taken away all the numerous forks and bowls Kiara always carried around in case she and her friends - which were many - got hungry - which was often - so the only option available to the team (apart from Spidey, obviously, and from Barbas, who was quite content lying on the ground and tearing at his share of venison with his teeth) was to bite small bits off the large chunk of venison pinned on the tip of Kiara's sword. When Kiara took the first bite, loud and ravenous, and, still munching, fat running down her chin, passed the sword to Ondolemar, the luckless Thalmor drew away in horror, barely containing the urge to retch. She then shrugged her shoulders in a suit-yourself way and took another bite, and another, clearly enjoying every single one. His empty stomach giving a most unbecoming wail of agony, Ondolemar glared at Kiara and jerked the sword out of her hands. The sudden warmth that he felt with his bare skin, as he touched her wrists, made his heart give a most curious little jolt; the jolt repeated, with increased strength, when he moved closer to Kiara to give back the venison. He froze in this position, still holding on to the sword, his body, much too scantily clad in his opinion, a fracture of an inch away from hers, - till Kiara gave the sword an impatient tug and he had to part with it and disguise his feelings with a loud soliloquy on the subject of the human lack of table manners.

The meal - if you could call it that - finally over, Kiara spread Ondolemar's robes out on a rock to dry (first, she had tried to hang them over the flame, but was hindered by the indignant Thalmor, who was afraid she might set them on fire) and declared it was time for 'beddy-bye'. Barbas volunteered to keep watch, disregarding Ondolemar's vehement protests against the safety of his precious, superiorly bred self being entrusted to a dog - and so, instructing him to bark if anything was amiss, Kiara curled up snugly on one of the two wolf pelts the two bandits had somehow missed out. The other one she offered to Ondolemar, together with Spidey's saddle, which was to serve him as a pillow; wondering if he could sink any lower, he almost literally incinerated Kiara with a silent glare, lay down onto his excuse for a bed and soon drifted off to sleep, half-hoping that he would wake up back in Markarth, and all of this would turn out to have been nothing more than a nightmare.

He dreamt he was drowning in a bottomless sea of a rich, bright blue colour - the exact colour of Kiara's eyes.


	8. The longest journey: part 7

The day had dawned grey and gloomy, and by noon the brooding clouds began sneezing out small bursts of drizzle every now and again; in a couple of hours the drizzle strengthened, and the few shades of green and blue and yellow and other colours, which had timidly attempted to live up the surrounding greyness, completely dissolved beneath a thick, impenetrable veil of cold water that seemed to be firmly sewn in between the sky and the ground. The sticky, bleak wetness seemed to have seeped inside the minds of the four travellers as well; they made a cheerless little procession, trudging through thick, gooey, bubbling mud - first Kiara, who had attempted to lift everyone's spirits by urging them to do some puddle-jumping, but soon stopped, getting no support; then Barbas, looking utterly piteous with his soggy fur and water dripping from the tip of his snout; and finally, Spidey, meekly tolerating the presence of a silently dignified Ondolemar on his back (the long-suffering Thalmor had flatly refused to make as much as one more step on foot), still wearing his Forsworn garb, for he could not abide ruining his precious robe once again and had ordered Kiara to pack it in the saddlebag for safekeeping.

After what could have been half an hour, or half a century, of walking, Kiara stopped dead in her tracks and peered intently at the blurred, tower-like something looming through the wet grey haze ahead of them 'This is it!' she cried out at length, breaking into a triumphant little dance ankle-deep in the mud. 'Dead Crone Rock! I found it! Well, technically _we_ found it, but I found it more than the three of you! By the way, does anyone have any idea why the name of this place sounds familiar to me all of a sudden?'

'Because you were supposed to take me here?' Ondolemar asked venomously, barely deigning to part his lips in the usual Thalmor fashion.

Kiara frowned, 'No, that's not it. I am pretty sure there was something else... Something like...'

'Duck!' Barbs barked urgently.

'What on earth do ducks have to do with it?' Kiara asked, raising her eyebrows in an expression of good-natured surprise. 'Have you actually seen a duck in these parts?'

'Oh please!' Ondolemar exclaimed in exasperation, leaping off Spidey's back, landing right in the middle of a mud puddle with a tremendous squelch and pushing Kiara down onto her knees, seconds before a solitary Forsworn sentry, who had been watching the slowly approaching intruders from atop a small turret, finally released his readied arrow.

Ondolemar had lowered himself onto the ground as well; for a while, they lay side by side, allowing the mud to soak through their clothing and moisten their skin, arrows swooshing over their heads one after the other, their eyes once again locked in a silent jostle, Kiara's lit up with warm glow of gratitude, Ondolemar's blazing like amber in firelight, filled with a strange combination of repulsion, and desperately suppressed longing, and apprehensive incredulity.

'You do realize that lying around like this is the worst possible strategy, right?' Barbas asked, leaping over them and charging through the tower's door. Ondolemar started, as if wakening from a dream, and hurried to scramble back to his feet. 'Why is it that ever since I hired you I always end up splattered with mud?' he muttered, deliberately forgetting to help Kiara up.

'You know, your mace doesn't really go with this outfit! How about a couple of spiky swords, one in each hand? You'd look swell! Wanna me to pass them to you?'

'For your information, I am not even supposed to be fighting! It is you, the barely sentient little human that I honoured with hiring, who should handle all the danger! What kind of bodyguard are you?'

'The_ awesome_ kind! I saved you, like, twice!'

'I saved you too - despite the fact that I am not obliged to do so!'

'Well, I saved you more!'

'Will you ever stop doing your imitation of an old married couple? We are in mid-battle here!' Barbas snarled irritably, glancing in disapproval at Ondolemar and Kiara, who were standing back to back, out of breath, faces covered in soot and specks of blood, displaying miraculous skill in combining non-stop bickering and throwing advancing Forsworn into the air at different angles. They made an impressive duo - but all things eventually come to an end, even foes that you toss around with sword and sorcery. And thus there came a point when Kiara and Ondolemar ran out of Forsworn, and when they did, the Thalmor wiped the sweat off his impeccable high-elven brow and declared, returning to his usual imperious manner, 'Your job here is almost done. You are to help me search this - what do the locals call them, redoubts? - for any signs of a hidden Talos cult.

Kiara made a small grimace of the 'Yeah, right, now tell me the one about the Horker wife' kind. 'Really now! You guys may be high and mighty and all, but it wouldn't hurt to learn a little more about human history. The Forsworn don't worship Talos - they have their own Old Gods; I know because I have a nifty little set of armour back home, a present from their king; I sorta tagged along when he escaped from prison... Well, this armour is called Armour of the Old Gods - but I call it Armour of the Old Hotness, because... well, you should really see me wearing it sometime. I offered to lend it to my friend Brelyna from the College of Winterhold, when I arranged a blind date between her and my other friend, Brand-Shei; because, you see, he turned out to be the last heir of House Telvanni, and her family used to be Telvanni kinsmen, so I figured - hey, why not...'

It could have been that Ondolemar was going soft for some reason and the scratches on Kiara's cheek, still quite fresh, stirred within him that peculiar appendix of the mind, completely redundant for a Thalmor, that lesser beings call conscience - in any case, this time he didn't slap her, though he was evidently much, much tempted to; instead, he just gave her one of his enraged glares and hissed, _'Search. The. Ruin'._

'Fine, fine!' Kiara replied with a small laugh, backing away from Ondolemar in mock terror, 'One ruin search, coming right up! But bear in mind - it is_ bear in mind,_ right? Sounds awfully like my friend Temba from Ivarstead; she always has bears in mind - that if you get it into your gorgeous shaven head to have someone arrested, count me out. I will fight for your prisoners like I fight for the prisoners of every other fellow from your gang - even if your prisoners are gonna be just mouldy old books and cobwebs, which I am totally sure they will...'

'Did you just call his head _gorgeous?'_ Barbas asked in dramatic whisper. 'Girl, the fellow is a _Thalmor!_ You don't flirt with the Thalmor!'

'Did I flirt with him?' Kiara lifted her eyebrows innocently. 'Gee, you know my golden rule: first talk, then think. Now, how about you try being a real dog and sniff something out?'

'Hagraven feathers? Check! A bunch of empty soul gems? Check! A cracked potion bottle? Check! Suspicious stuff, isn't it?' Kiara looked up from the junk she had been piling at the tips of Ondolemar's boots for the past several minutes, laughter throbbing somewhere in between her collar bones like a bird about to be let out of its cage.

He pursed his lips and, with a single movement of his foot, crushed Kiara's findings to dust, 'Do not insult my intelligence. See the snow billowing from beneath the door up that flight of steps? There has to be another exit. I, however, do not intend to go through it until it is absolutely certain that I won't be burned to a crisp by a dragon, or caught in a trap, or shot at with arrows, or put in danger in any other manner. So get a move on and clear the way for me. _Now'._

_'Get a move on! Clear the way! _Who in Oblivion does he think he is - the Emperor? And we didn't even discuss our fee with him!'

Barbas would have gone on and on - he hated getting bad bargains - but Kiara bent down and clapped her fingers tightly round his snout. They had walked right into the den of a Hagraven.

But it seemed that it was already too late for taking precautions. The creature had spotted them and was now staring right into Kiara's face with a pair of dark, beady, malicious eyes.

Kiara waved her hand weakly. 'Hi there!' she blurted out, giggling sheepishly. 'We don't mean any trouble! Honest! Though we might have killed a few of your Forsworn buddies... But they started it! Anyway, we were looking for a Talos shrine or something of this kind, which you obviously don't have here, so we won't be bothering you any longer, it was good to have a chat with you, have a good day...'

The Hagraven did not as much as blink. 'Intruders!' she wheezed. _'Die!'_


	9. The longest journey: part 8

It seemed that for the last day Ondolemar had hardly spent a second without being enraged - but now his fury reached a completely new, record level.

'In the name of all the false gods you worship - what takes you so long?!' he thundered, bursting out of the tower into the open air, nostrils flaring, eyebrows knitted, a lightning spell on the ready.

'Hi!' Kiara mouthed, her hand twitching in a feeble imitation of a gesture of greeting. She was incapable of more, because she was being held by the throat by an angry Hagraven, while Barbas was whimpering pathetically at her side, licking the burn marks from a firebolt.

'Incompetent,' Ondolemar muttered through gritted teeth, straightening his cupped fingers to let the lightning that rested in snake-like coils in the palm of his hand awaken and find its target. There was a bright, piercing flash and a smell of singed feathers; the Hagraven squawked in anger, released her vice-like clutches, making Kiara plop down to the ground like a rag doll, and turned to face the newest intruder.

What followed next made Kiara (as she recalled later) wish she and Barbas had something soft to sit on and something yummy to chew (and possibly drink through a hollowed straw) while watching. But since their surroundings, being all rock and dry tufts of undergrowth, provided them with nothing of the kind, the girl and her hound had to make do with leaping up and down at a safe distance, chanting 'Go, Lemmie!' (needless to say, Kiara was immensely proud of having finally thought of a way to shorten her employer's unpronounceable name) and screwing up their eyes every now and then, when the explosions got too bright. But after a while Kiara seemed to find herself no longer able to focus on the duelling duo's dance-like circling among bursts of fire and lightning; her leaps grew less vigorous and gradually stopped; she began to glance around restlessly and finally abandoned Barbas, who was still eagerly following the clashes of raging red and sizzling purple, and walked off, her expression strangely vacant, towards a nearby stone structure, somewhat resembling a wall and covered with what looked like writing in some strange tongue, each letter carved deep into the rock surface, like a wound from a gigantic beast claw. The wall seemed to be drawing Kiara to itself, calling out to her in chorus of low, rumbling voices, voices of shadows that belonged to an age long since forgotten, forbidding her to look away or to turn back; she moved closer and closer, wide-eyed, mesmerized, until she could touch the cold, hard stone with her fingertips. And when she did touch it, one of the words on the wall sprang ablaze with blinding blue, and the wall breathed out a warm wave of light; it pushed Kiara softly in the chest; she staggered, inhaling deeply, greedily, shakily, and closed her eyes, as if about to dive into deep, cold water; when she finally opened them, her blank, enthralled look was gone and her face was once again cheerfully enthusiastic.

'Guess what, I just discovered a completely new Shout!' she cried out excitedly, trotting back to where Ondolemar had been battling the Hagraven. 'And I mean, completely new! Can't wait to find the other two Words! Gee, isn't collecting a marvellicious hobby? I just love collecting stuff - Words of Power, Dragon Priest masks, treasure maps, pie recipes; don't you?'

Her eagerness was to remain unshared, for Barbas was busy tugging at the feathers of the Hagraven, in an attempt to drag her away from Ondolemar, whose bare chest she was tearing at with her long curved talons. It appeared that while Kiara was called away by the wall, the duelists had both ran out of magical energy and were forced to switch to close-range combat, and given that Ondolemar's mace was lying on the ground completely abandoned, most likely knocked out of his grasp by the enraged Hagraven, the Thalmor was not faring all too well. With a small Oh-gee-I-ve-gotta-do-something-to-help gasp, Kiara tiptoed up to the Hagraven and prodded her gently in the back with her index finger.

'I say,' she began, making a point of sounding as friendly and genial as possible, 'I am sorta this fellow's bodyguard, and I am sorta protecting him... He was doing so great on his own just now, so I stepped aside and let him do his thing for a while - but since you, well, have him all beaten up, maybe you could have a go at strangling me again? Come on, this is gonna be fun!'

The Hagraven slowly turned her head and scrutinized the insolent wretch that had so rudely interrupted her clawing. Kiara grinned and backtracked a little way, the very air around her screaming 'Come and get me!', and the Hagraven, succumbing to the temptation of crushing a few neck vertebrae, abandoned the heavily panting, ashen pale Ondolemar and straightened herself up, ready for another round of fiery dance. But as she made a few steps forward, not taking her eyes off Kiara, who was doing a rather realistic imitation of a gladiator before a match, swaying her body from side to side, her knees half-bent, and flexing her muscles, she froze and let out a throbbing, ear-splitting shriek, suddenly engulfed in a jet of flame that had burst out of a soul gem she herself had invented to use for trapping uncaring outsiders. Kiara made a faint gulp and clapped her hands against her mouth, her eyes welling up with a shimmering film of tears as she watched the Hagraven writhe in pain and then sink to her knees, like a burned-up dark candle bending over beneath its own weight. 'Oh dear,' she whispered, _'This _isn't fun at all'.

Ondolemar yet again refused to have his wounds tended to by Kiara, which she had offered to do as soon as she recovered from witnessing the tragic end of the Hagraven... although (or probably because) the image of her passing her warm, soft hands over his bleeding chest sent a pleasant tingle down his spine - something which he did not recall feeling ever before in his life). Instead, he took to pacing in front of the World Wall, which he had not deigned to pay any notice to (the 'ancient Nord art' being obviously far less important than his own concerns), casting a healing spell on himself with one hand while clenching the fingers of the other in a fist and then unclenching them in exasperation. 'Another dead end!' he spat out, his voice strained, almost tearful. 'No signs of Talos worship! This journey was supposed to produce results! Concrete, solid results! And I have found out nothing, save for the limits of my own humiliation!'

'Now, now, buddy,' Barbas remarked good-naturedly. 'Maybe that old lady was a secret Talos groupie!'

He proceeded to race up to the Hagraven's charred remains and take a few loud sniffs, 'Let's see... What do we have here... Claws, feathers, loads of other icky stuff, the pommel of Mehrunes' Razor... Wait, the pommel of Mehrunes' Razor? Interesting...'

'I knew it,' Ondolemar said darkly. 'In all likelihood, he hasn't even _been_ here!'

'Who hasn't been here?' Kiara asked interestedly.

'Sanyon,' Ondolemar replied; at first, he spoke slowly, with evident reluctance, not being accustomed to elaborate his words to anyone, especially bothersome humans and dogs - but then, frustration got the better of him, and his voice grew faster, more vehement - almost feverish. 'He is one of my agents. So far, all of the leads he has given us have proved bogus. The First Emissary suspects foul play; she wanted me to investigate this matter personally, and all I have got is bruises, dirt and marks from Hagraven claws!'

'Sanyon...' Kiara echoed, her expression suddenly thoughtful. 'You know, I just might be able to help you find him...'


	10. The longest journey: part 9

The visions crowded before his sleeping mind, surfacing from the waters of oblivion one after the other, bumping together like bulky floes of ice - snatches of recent memories, vivid, life-like, haunting.

_He is sitting with his back propped up against the wall of a small cavern, gaping at his hands, stunned, uncomprehending. 'These can't be my hands, holding a steaming bowl of strange, foul-smelling liquid,' he thinks in mute, blank terror. 'These can't be my eyes, seeing the snow swirling outside, and the northern lights blazing in the sky. This can't be my body, weary, and aching, and numb with cold. This... This can't be me!'_

_Then, there is the sound of snow creaking softly beneath someone's feet, very light, as though dancing, and a ruffle-haired head peers inside, and he is almost blinded by a flashing smile. Kiara. 'What have you done with me?' he asks hoarsely, wincing in helpless anger._

_'I have just cured you of Brainrot!' she declares proudly. 'Do you have any idea how hard mudcrabs are to come by in these parts?'_

_'Which... parts?' he asks weakly, his mind barely able to process her words._

_'The Pale, of course! I asked you to help me out with another quest of mine, the one about the Dawnstar museum, in exchange for my services, so to speak, because Barbas suspected you wouldn't be giving us any money, because your horse had ran off and all - and guess what, you agreed! I was so surprised... I mean, one moment, you are all indignant, and stiff, and haughty and whatnot, and the next you are meek and obedient and even a bit depressed-like. Well, soon enough it turned out that poor old Drascua - the Hagraven at Dead Crone Rock - had infected you with Brainrot; you were really sleepy, and distracted, then you started forgetting things, and a couple of times you collapsed! So, we had to keep you seated on Spidey's back all the time, and to put up with your delirium... I mean, Barbas had to put up with your delirium; me, I was completely okay with that...'_

_He allows her voice to trail off; nothing, not even the horror of realizing that he has yet again displayed weakness in front of a human, can make him tear his gaze away from her face, from the shimmering blueness of her eyes, which gradually fills his entire being, like the northern lights filling the entire sky..._

**They are standing side by side on a broad icy ledge, looking out into the boundless expanse of dazzling gold and tender pink spreading out before their eyes. The sun is rising over the Sea of Ghosts. **

**'Gods, how I love, love, love sunrises!' Kiara exclaims, taking a deep breath of air and spreading out her arms, as if about to soar into the air, free, bird-like. 'Doesn't it make you wanna sing?'**

**'No,' he replies dryly.**

**She turns away from the sky and peers intently into his face. 'You are still mad about this whole travel-to-the-Pale-with-me thing, aren't you? Relax! I know where we can find Sanyon, I promise you! I have a plan... almost. We've stuck together this far (or was it sticked together? Ah, whatever!). You've got to trust me! Do you trust me?'**

**He hesitates to make a reply. He does not recall trusting anyone in his life. Ever. Not completely. Not even the other members of the Thalmor. Much less a human. A meddlesome, exasperating, almost unbelievably unintelligent human. A human that was supposed to keep him out of trouble and has successfully managed to do the exact opposite. But somehow, he can't stop himself from saying, 'I trust you'. **

**She smiles at him, 'Great!' **

**Still smiling, she bends down, scoops up a handful of snow, shapes it into a snowball with her nimble fingers - and without any warning whatsoever, flings the snowball into his face...**

**_She emerges out of a Nordic barrow, breathless, laughing. On her back, she is carrying a large round shield, which she promptly sets down on the ground, right on the edge of a steep descend down into a snow-shrouded valley, and gives her hound a very meaningful, sly wink. The four-legged abomination climbs onto the shield, tail wagging in anticipation of something that simply cannot be good. 'Come on,' she urges, with one of those amicable claps on the back that he detests (and secretly cherishes) so much. 'It's loads of fun, and much faster than going all the way down on foot!'_**

**_'You have a horse,' he snaps, trying to back away from her. She blocks his way, giggling, 'Oh, Spidey will be sliding down too, on another shield. He is totally sliding-trained. I have a way with horses, you know. Many Redguards do, actually. Take my friend Shadr in Riften, for instance..._**

**_She talks on and on; her voice throbs inside him, resonating through his veins like silver bells ringing in an empty hallway; before he realizes what has just happened, he finds himself seated on the shield, crouching awkwardly beside the hound; she climbs on as well and puts her arms round his shoulders from behind; he starts violently at her touch and attempts to jerk himself free; but it is already too late - she kicks off, and they swoosh down through the scorchingly cold whiteness. For while, he is blinded, deafened, stupefied; there is nothing left in the universe but the shrill ringing in his ears, the scraping of wind's claws inside his lungs, and Kiara's fast, excited heartbeat somewhere at his side, penetrating his skin, drumming through his body, mingling with the frenzied pulsing of his own blood._**

**_They land in the very middle of a snow drift, plunging into it head first; the sticky wet snow gets into his eyes, and nose, and mouth; he coughs it out with the desperate force of a drowning man, and emerges. Staggering to his feet, he brushes the snow off his robe, his lips curled in disgust - and suddenly, freezes right as he is, bending down slightly, stunned by the realization that there is a strange, utterly unfamiliar sound coming out of his mouth, strong, loud, intoxicating - laughter. He laughs till he is too weary to take another breath, mentally screaming for someone to rescue him, to wake him from this insane feverdream. But salvation never comes. Instead, Kiara makes a loud, overjoyed squeal and leaps at him, arms stretched out for a hug. He dodges her grasp, making her lose her balance and drop back into the snow. She turns over so she can see his face, but does not get up; she remains lying there, on her back, her teeth glistening whiter than the surrounding snow, large soft flakes melting away on her eyelashes till they turn into sparkling, crystal-like droplets of water. He gazes down at her, brooding, silent, internally torn between the two usual impulses - to send her pathetic little soul to Oblivion with a single well-aimed lightning bolt and to take her in his arms and kiss her till they both start choking..._**

_They are walking in single file, their steps slow and cautious, along a narrow strip of dry land between two deep, steaming, almost unnaturally turquoise lakes. The air is humid and stiflingly hot, and on both sides of their path steam comes gushing out towards the pale blue sky in thick sluggish white jets every now and again, with an ear-splitting whistle. Kiara is glancing around with eager, child-like interest, taking in the barren landscape of the volcanic tundra with the greed of a blind person whose sight has been miraculously restored. He has already become more or less familiar with this manner of hers - to gape at everything around her, even at what she has seen countless times before, as if it were something completely new; he has always found it exceedingly annoying... and at the same time, oddly touching. _

_Suddenly, abruptly, she stops, wheels around and, grinning from ear to ear, speaks three words in a tongue he has never heard before, 'Fus Ro Dah!'_

_As the invisible wave rushing from her triumphant little self pushes him in the chest, he sways, waving his arms in the air in a most ridiculous, un-Thalmor-esque manner, and falls into the hot water with a tremendous, dramatic splash._

_ 'That was kinda random,' the hound remarks._

_'I know!' Kiara says brightly. 'I just figured Lemmie here needed to unwind a bit'._

_He glares at her, struggling to keep afloat. She pulls her armour off over her head, flings it carelessly onto a nearby rock, kicks off her boots and leaps in herself._

_'Go on and swim around a bit,' she says, bobbing up and down on the hot green waves, her eyes half-closed like those of a drowsily purring kitten. 'It's awesomely relaxing! I bet you never ever relaxed before; too busy being a stiff old meanie, am I right?'_

_He squints his eyes in suspicion, pondering over how she managed to land him in the water. But before the mismatched puzzle pieces scattered across his mind (most of them featuring the Stormcloaks in one way or the other) can slide together to form a coherent picture, Kiara clasp her hands against the lake surface, showering him with water; he splashes back at her, rapidly, irrevocably infected by her silvery laughter..._

**He is sitting, huddled uncomfortably, among the gnarled, twisting roots of a gigantic tree. The evening fog is creeping in, so dense that he can barely see his own fingertips. Somewhere beyond its milky white veil, the forest is living its nocturnal life, sighing, groaning, rustling. **

**He shivers and shifts uneasily, pulling up his robe collar and frowning at his own thoughts. He has just been through yet another quarrel with Kiara, which started with him mustering all his reserves of venomous sarcasm to launch a verbal attack on her and ended with him storming off, head thrown back proudly, intending to finally rid himself from his insufferable human companion and head back to Markarth on his own. It all looked perfect in theory - arriving at the Understone Keep, issuing an arrest warrant for Kiara and making her pay for all these days of constant humiliation... But in reality, though it has hardly been a few hours since the start of his solitary wanderings, he is already missing her. Missing her terribly, desperately, with every tiniest fibre of his being. He does not dare look around him, for every blurred, shapeless shadow seems to him to be her shadow, approaching him through the fog; he does not dare listen in to the whispers of the night, for every sound seems to him to be the echo of her voice, calling out that degrading, shortened version of his name. He longs to return, to see her again, to hear her ringing laughter, to suffer at her hands when she thinks up some ridiculous game or other; the longing builds up within him, heart-wringing, suffocating... Finally, he cannot bear it any longer; he gets up and strides off into the fog, with an impossible, insane notion of retracing his steps to their campsite.**

**She will find him, some hours later, cornered by three Spriggans, whose slumber he will have inadvertently disturbed. Without a word, she will help him tackle his adversaries, and after the matron and her two daughters finally retreat back into the murky depths of their grove, she will grip his arm, a little above the elbow, in a silent, reassuring gesture, and together, they will set up a new camp for the night, never ceasing to bicker...**

**_He is making his way up a winding forest path, his face impenetrably expressionless (or so he thinks), his fingers tightly intertwined behind his back; Kiara is racing, colt-like, by his side; the horse and the hound are walking somewhere in their wake. It is high noon, and the undergrowth it dappled with spots of golden light, like drops of spilled honey... He shudders at having made this mental comparison; it seems that Kiara's irritating affinity for excited, wordy descriptions has began to affect him, as have so many of her other habits._**

**_They have been arguing on history and theology, along the usual lines, Kiara shocking him with her utterly heretical way of thinking - and then, completely out of the blue, she decides to change the subject._**

**_'Say...' she begins, reaching down to pick a flower from the side of the path. 'There is one absolutely cute little Nord superstition, has to do with flowers. You pick a flower, and pass it across your chin, and if there's some - What's that stuff called? I keep forgetting - ah, yes, pollen... Yeah, if there's some pollen left on your face, it means you're in love with someone. I've tried it a few times, and I always turn out in love... Which is totally true; I certainly feel in love... I just can't ever figure out whom with... Or is it with whom? With who? Whowith?'_**

**_'Keep that disgusting little plant away from me!' he cries out, shielding his face. But she is too quick for him; in one brisk, swipe-like movement, she manages to brush the flower against the tip of his once neat goatee, which he has most shamefully neglected for several days. In blank horror, he lifts his gloved hand to feel his chin; when he dares to look at his fingers, he discovers distinct traces of thick, bright yellow pollen..._**

Ondolemar woke up with a start, his hand still groping his face. The moons were shining in the sky, sailing slowly towards the horizon, and the insolent waterfall that had kept him awake half the night with its rumbling noise was still pouring down on the left side of the rocky ledge where they had made camp. He glanced around, probing the darkness for any signs of what the others were doing. Soon enough, his eyes, aching with the effort, registered the silhouette of Spidey, chewing drowsily at some dry grass, and those of Kiara and Barbas, sitting a little way off, heads close together. Plotting something. Against him, most likely. He shifted a little closer, straining his keen elven hearing to its full extent. And soon enough, he began to discern what sounded like a very heated, though whispered, debate.

'Kiara girl', Barbas said firmly, 'You can't frolic around like this forever! We have better stuff to do, he has better stuff to do - well, better from his obviously bad point of view...'

'Well, what else is there to do _but_ frolic?' Kiara replied defensively. 'Such a funny word, by the way... I can't just lead him to Reachcliff Cave!'

'And why not?' Barbas asked with a small snort. 'Good riddance, if you ask me'.

'Don't be so mean!' Kiara sounded as if she was on the verge of bursting into tears. 'We must keep him from finding Sanyon! Ever! If he finds him and his gang, he is dead!'

'Oh please', Barbas objected impatiently. 'He is not a child! He can handle himself. And if he can't - well, he's only a Thalmor. No big loss here'.

'He is not just any Thalmor...' Kiara's voice was now so quiet that Ondolemar could barely hear what she was saying.

'Huh? What makes him special all of a sudden?' Barbas sneered.

'I...' Kiara swallowed, faltering. 'I lo...'

'You filthy little liar!' Ondolemar had no patience left for any more eavesdropping. He sprang to his feet and, emerging suddenly out the darkness behind Kiara's back, grabbed her by the collar of her armour, lifting her slightly into the air and almost strangling her. 'You knew where Sanyon was all along - and yet you had the audacity to drag me halfway across this hole of a province and back again without saying anything definite! _I have a hunch where he might be', _he sang shrilly, mimicking Kiara's manner of speaking. _'Trust me, and we will find him someday! _Well, it seems that my trust was misplaced!'

'Please,' Kiara whimpered, gasping for breath. 'I can explain...'

Ondolemar's lips parted in a malicious leer, 'Do you have any idea how many times I heard that line before? Spare me your pathetic nonsense!'

With force fed by boiling rage, he flung Kiara down on the ground and cast a paralyzing spell on her, 'I am done with you. This time, I will not be coming back'.

'Hey!' Barbas barked indignantly, dashing after Ondolemar, who, after giving Kiara a farewell kick, had promptly mounted Spidey and was about to ride off into the wilderness. 'That's our horse, you... you criminal scum! Fancy that, I still remember running gags from two hundred years ago...'

Without deigning as much as to turn his head to see what was that bouncing about at his mount's hooves, Ondolemar spurred Spidey with his boots, making the poor steed reel to his hind legs and gallop down the mountain path, raising a cloud of dust.

'All right then, go on and leave,' Barbas growled in resignation. 'I hope you get caught by those two bandits again!'

The moons sank into the torrent of melted gold that was spreading across the sky from the east. The first warm rays of the rising caressed the small campsite on the side of a mountain, and glided across the face of the small figure of a young Redguard woman that lay prostrate in its middle, reflected in the shimmering tears streaming silently down her cheeks.


	11. The longest journey: part 10

The hunger was always there, no matter what they did or where they went, awake when they were asleep, singing inside of them when they were silent, laughing when they were frowning - a delirious, drunken laughter that swallowed them whole, sucked them in like a bog with blood-red waters. The hunger had a mind of its own, imperious, impatient; its demands never ceased; it planted visions inside their minds, visions of raw, steaming flesh being torn by their teeth, visions of crimson life juices spurting out, scorching their faces, moistening their parched lips... The visions enthralled them, and they did the hunger's bidding, feverish, quaking, in the clutches of the dark addiction that their Lady had blessed them with. The hunger had to be sated, and their usual offerings were nowhere near enough. The beast living inside each of them craved more, so much more than the dry, stringy flesh of the Nord dead - and at each of their secret meetings in the sanctuary of Reachcliff Cave they would gather round Eola, their eyes mad with bloodlust, and demand a different feast, different flesh, warm, succulent, still tasting of life. And every time, Eola would say to them, with a reassuring smile, 'Patience, brothers and sisters. Soon, the Redguard child that helped us reclaim our shrine from the Draugr will come back, bringing with her a fresh kill for us'.

'We repel her,' Sanyon would object, in a hoarse, hungry voice. 'She will never come back. She said as much - in her wordy, confusing manner'.

But Eola would only shake her head in reply, 'Namira spoke to me in a dream after the child's departure, and promised a feast of living flesh upon her return'.

In the end, Eola's vision was proved to have been right - though not too exact...

* * *

The vastly diverse but invariably gratifying pictures Ondolemar had been drawing of himself apprehending the rogue agent all dissolved the instant he crossed the threshold of the chamber that opened at the end of the narrow, stuffy passageway along which he had been walking. This was not at all like what he had expected. He lingered for a few moments, taking in the grim, gaunt-faced, silently malevolent figures seated around a long, abundantly laden table - and then, with a small start, reached out for his mace, having recognized one of the mirthless revellers as his runaway subordinate. Sanyon noticed his movement; as he rose slowly from his seat, the corners of his lips twitched, displaying a row of uneven, yellowish teeth, smeared in something deep crimson. He approached Ondolemar, who was watching him unblinkingly with his blazing amber eyes like a cat about to pounce, and stretched out his hand in greeting, 'It has been a while since we last spoke, Head Justiciar. I suppose you are expecting me to give you an explanation...'

'Any _explanations_ you have in store will have to wait until the official interrogation,' Ondolemar said coldly. 'You have breached our code of conduct. You are a traitor to the Thalmor cause, a traitor to the Dominion - and you shall be tried as such'.

The people at the table exchanged looks of mild, almost amused surprise. Ondolemar's nostrils flared: during his purposeless wanderings across Skyrim together with Kiara he had had more than enough of not being taken seriously. 'You have been warned, Sanyon,' he said through gritted teeth, flexing the fingers of his mace-free hand.

His lightning bolt dissolved with a barely audible sizzle before it reached its target, absorbed by the magical ward cast in front of Sanyon by the one-eyed woman in light armour who had been sitting next to him, looking at Ondolemar in such a way as if she was barely suppressing a loud burst of triumphant laughter. Before he had time to recharge his spell, she came up to him and attempted to pass her hand provocatively over the buckles of his robe; he grabbed her by the wrist with such force that he could almost hear the dry crackling of her bones. Her face remained unmoved.

'Come now, stranger', she breathed softly, 'Why won't you and Sanyon try to settle this little quarrel of yours amicably? We have a feast prepared; let it become a feast in celebration of peace between the two of you. You look travel-worn; rest, and then you can join us...'

His experience with magic was more than enough to make him realize that she was trying to put him under an Illusion spell; and he knew exactly what had to be done. Without tearing his gaze away from the woman's single eye or letting go of her hand, he took a deep breath and focused on resisting control, protecting his mind from intrusion like a military commander protects his besieged fortress. But the sly attacker had already managed to find her way in and struck at the dark, remote corner of his mind - the only place where this perfect stronghold was vulnerable. For a fracture of a second, her face melted away, replaced by a completely different image, sharp and vivid, like a sudden flash of lightning. For a fracture of a second, a breathless, insane fracture, he could have sworn that he was looking at Kiara, that it was her smile that was blinding him, sinking deep into his heart like a dagger, making him feel as if his soul was a sponge slowly lowered into a pitcher of warm wine... This little trick was enough to breach all the elaborate defenses of his mind, and before he could even realize it, he slipped away into darkness, abandoning his own body, leaving it to be controlled by a stranger, as if it were an automaton obeying the commands of its Dwemer master...

* * *

During her secret negotiations with Skjor and Aela in the Underforge Kiara had been torn apart by a rather complex dilemma. On the one hand, she had always wanted to 'hang out' with the Circle, its members more than living up to her definition of 'cool' - but on the other hand, turning into a ferocious, man-eating mound of hair and muscle, howling at the moons and mauling people to shreds is hardly the best way to pass the time when you would much rather play tag with children in the street or snack on a delicious sweetroll or several dozen... In the end, she still settled on accepting the gift of Aela's beast blood, because apart from the said howling and mauling, being a werewolf does have a few perks that even a pacifist may find quite useful. One of them is the ability to run on all fours with such speed that you can - if you put a good mind to it - outrun a carriage. Kiara had had more than one chance to fully appreciate this advantage, and catching up with Ondolemar (having recovered from his paralysis spell first, naturally) was no exception. Leaving Barbas behind, with the instructions to 'be a good puppy while mamma's gone', she transformed into her second, much less friendly, genial and sweet, self, and started what she would later call 'the Rescue Lemmie Marathon'. Thanks to the astonishing muscle power of her wolf-like paws, and to knowing more than a few shortcuts, she actually managed to arrive in Reachcliff Cave before Ondolemar, and as soon as her heart stopped doing a frenzied war dance in her chest and her head stopped swimming after all those hours of seeing nothing but rocks and trees rushing past her in a colourful haze, she reverted to human form, crept inside and hid in the shadows, watching, waiting. She let Ondolemar stride into the inner sanctum of the Namira cult unhindered, because, as she had been told by the finest masters of the Bards' College, the hero must rush to the rescue only at the most dramatic moment. So she remained crouching in a darkened corner, binding her time, while Eola enthralled Ondolemar and ordered to lie down on Namira's altar, which he did, his face so terribly expressionless that Kiara had to bite hard at her fingernails in order not to sob out loud. When Eola, hovering over Ondolemar with a hungry leer, asked, her voice loud and trembling with anticipation, who would take it upon him- or herself to carve the first piece, Kiara decided that the level of drama was just about enough and leapt out of her hiding place with a most heroic, 'How about... _no one?!'_

Eola turned to face her, still leering, 'You have returned. I knew you would eventually heed the voice of Namira. I will be more than happy to allow you to partake of tonight's feast'.

'I am not partaking of anything!' Kiara exclaimed, unsheathing her sword (autographed by Eorlund Grey-Mane while it was still red-hot, upon her urgent request). 'This is my Thalmor, and you are not touching him!'

'Is that so?' Eola smirked. And as it usually happens in such cases, her words were followed by utter pandemonium.

Among all the spell-casting, and sword-brandishing, and urn-throwing, Kiara did her best to take out Eola, Sanyon and his female companion without hurting the three Markarth commoners she had come to regard as friends. But after Eola stopped coughing and writhing, caught in the clutches of a blood-freezing Destruction spell, and lay still, her sly, silky voice silenced forever, her face a pallid mask of wax, and Sanyon sank to his knees, his face earthy-grey and glistening with cold sweat, his fingers clawing at the dark wet spot spreading rapidly across his chest where Eorlund's masterpiece had struck him, and the sultry elven lady whose name Kiara kept forgetting dropped down on the floor, when the young heroine, desperately out of magicka and cunningly disarmed by her - regrettably nameless - adversary, smashed a sizeable burial urn over her skull... when those of the cultists that Kiara considered to be more dangerous were finally defeated, she found herself suddenly cornered by Hogni, Lisbet and Banning. They advanced at her in silence, their faces twisted beyond recognition, hunger blazing in their widened, unblinking eyes, glaring out of their half-opened mouths, greedy, gaping mouths with parched lips. Kiara smiled at them sheepishly; they did not respond in any way, still closing in on her, still silent. She closed her eyes, her heart sinking. She had already used her beast power, her magicka had still not replenished, her sword was still lying in the dust at her feet, and she was desperately out of urns... There was no way out of this nightmare. Except, of course, for one thing. The Thu'Um.

Kiara opened her eyes again, blinking off tears. And just as she did, Lisbet touched her hand; her fingers were hard and cold, like those of a skeleton. Her nails dug deep into Kiara's flesh till blood came out; Lisbet leaned down to lick it off, smiling dreamily.

'I am sorry...' Kiara mouthed, gazing at the cultists with sincere pity. 'I really have no choice. I thought we could be friends...'

She had never pronounced the three words of her favourite Shout with less force, less enthusiasm, less 'oomph' (as she would usually call it). Her 'Fus Ro Dah' was barely more than a quiet, melancholy sigh - but it still had its effect, knocking the remaining cannibals off their feet and pushing them into the far end of the chamber. Kiara left them to slide down the wall without a second glance and perched herself on the edge of the altar, where Ondolemar still lay, motionless, not a sound, not a breath escaping his tightly pursed lips. She took his limp, ragdoll-like hand in hers and pressed it against her cheek. 'You aren't dead, are you?' she asked shakily. 'Because that would be very, very unfair'.

* * *

'Let go of me. _Now'._

Kiara, who had been sitting transfixed, caressing Ondolemar's hand mechanically, for the past half an hour, leapt up and clapped her hands together in excitement; her face lit up with an ecstatic smile, her eyes clearing like the summer sky after a thunderstorm.

'You are all right, you are all right, you are all right!' she sang, whirling round and round, hopping first on one leg, then on the other.

'I am certainly not,' he snapped, getting up slowly. 'In my vocabulary, being all right hardly belongs to the same semantic field with finding out that one of my Justiciars is a secret Namira worshipper, being put under a spell by an insane cultist and waking up with a splitting headache, only to find _your face _obscuring my vision'.

She gave him a look of friendly concern, 'A headache, you say? I have got just the remedy! Well, not the actual remedy, but the recipe for it; I learned it from a good friend of mine. Her name is Arcadia, and she has a shop in Whiterun where she sells lots of nifty stuff... Which reminds me: once she made a love potion, and decided to try it out on the Jail's wizard...'


	12. The witch who sent this flame: part 1

'Lucan will be furious when he sees this,' Camilla said, her tone not too concerned, surveying the pillow fight battlefield, vast and worthy of being described in song and legend. Kiara scooped up two handfuls of feathers (coming from the worthy trader's favourite pillow, no more and no less) and blew them mischievously into her friend's face. 'We'll clean up after ourselves,' she smiled reassuringly. 'In the morning. About five minutes before he gets home from Whiterun. If we are in the mood. And now let's get this jolly old sleep-over rolling again! What's next on our busy-busy-busy schedule? How about snuggling somewhere warm, and eating honey nut treats, and braiding each other's hair, and talking about boys? Oh no, wait, scratch the braiding bit - our fingers will be all sticky!'

Camilla wholeheartedly agreed to this update of the agenda and proceeded to pile up blankets and the dishevelled remains of pillows to provide the perfect conditions for snuggling, while Kiara trotted up to her backpack - a brand new one, recently acquired from Enthir in Winterhold as part of a 'stop pestering me with stupid questions and we can do business' package deal - and fished out what must have been a week's worth supply of sweetmeats.

* * *

'So,' Camilla asked, with a good-naturedly sly smirk, having caught her breath after an exceedingly long-winded account of all the impossibly sweet ways with which Faendal would thank her for as much as noticing that he was there (Kiara had listened to it with the due amount of 'Aww's), 'Do you have anyone special? Anyone worth gossiping about?'

Kiara shrugged her shoulders, taking her time with replying. 'Nah,' she said at last, biting into her fifth honey nut treat. 'I've met tons and tons of really cute fellows, and we are great friends - mostly - but it never gets to that kissy-kissy bit. Though there was that old chappie in Solitude - his daughter sells this amazing spiced wine, I will definitely order a crateful for your wedding - who once started hitting on me, totally out of the blue... Or out of blackish kind of indigo, rather, because it was late at night. But I was wearing an amulet of Mara, and he was a bit on the tipsy side, so I guess he doesn't count. And then there was...'

She fell silent, blushing, her heart thumping gently against her throat. It was silly. Impossibly silly. It had already been more than a while, and she had promised herself that she would move on - she had solemnly sworn, then and there, after the metal gates of Markarth swung shut in front of her, with Barbas the hound and Spidey the steed as her witnesses, that she would treat him as the big old meanie that he was. And he had been mean as can be - after all she had done for him, after all the fun they had had together, after all those times she had saved his life, he had parted with her without as much as a 'Thank you'. No, instead, while all her sentimentally sniffing little self was silently screaming, 'Don't go so fast! Please, _please_ stay! You are my friend! No, _more_ than a friend!' she had been hit in the face with an icy, 'If you ever show your disgusting little human self in the Reach again, I will have you arrested'. She had laughed at those words, of course. But it's not that easy to laugh in front of a closed gateway, even if you have been laughing all your life. And to make matters worse, he had his face, that finely chiselled, arrogant face of his, firmly lodged in the back of her poor head. She did not know how he had managed to do that, but the bothersome thing kept surfacing from time to time, making her ever so soppy.

'Kiara dear,' Camilla mouthed anxiously, seeing her Redguard friend grow unusually, alarmingly serious, 'Is there something wrong?'

Kiara shook her head, with a broad, and somewhat forced, smile, 'It's nothing. Really nothing. I just remembered that once upon a time, when all the trees were bread and cheese (not really; they haven't ever been bread and cheese, not even in the Shivering Isles, and I know it for sure, because my mom went there loads of times when she was young, and she told me all about it)... Once upon a time, I made a bet with myself that I would make friends with a Thalmor. And the me that thought I could do it - well, that me lost... Say,' she added, her voice suddenly high-pitched and feverishly eager, 'Things really need livening up here. I suggest we play a little game of Truth or Dare - and since there has been a lot of truth told in these here walls for the past something something minutes, let's only dare each other to do things!'

'Your dares are boring,' Kiara declared in mock indignation. 'I mean, what's so daring about eating seven sweetrolls in a row? I can do it any old time, without being dared to...' She paused, putting her index fingers together and pressing them against her lips, deep in thought; after about three seconds - her average decision-making time - she clapped her hands and did a little gleeful dance across the room, 'I know! Since you are so bad at it, _I_ dare _myself_ to... to run to Bleak Falls Barrow and back in my nightie!'

'Are you out of your mind?!' Camilla exclaimed in alarm. 'It's freezing! And there are _things_ out there, in the darkness... things that wake up when we go to sleep...'

'I know!' Kiara replied light-heartedly. 'That's what will make it so fun!'

* * *

Camilla agreed to follow her as far as the town gateway; the two young women walked on tiptoe - on Kiara's suggestion, in order to make things 'more exciting'. When they reached the invisible start line of the epic race, they stopped and stood in silence for a while, breathing in the crisp night air, listening to the murmurs of the sleeping wilderness. Then Kiara, who had not as much as shivered in the piercing wind that tugged at her light gown like a spoiled child trying to get his mother's attention, flexed her muscles, lowered herself on one knee, and dashed off into the darkness, her gown billowing in the wind, glowing white in the moonlight. She intended to run the whole way without using her secret 'cheat' (that is, her werewolf form, which allowed her to cover large distances faster than a galloping horse); that way, the dare would be much, much more daring. She laughed as the cold wind lashed at her face; and as the dark outlines of the bare trees, each like a skeletal hand with groping fingers, rushed past her, blending with one another, she laughed; the laughter coursed through her veins like liquid fire, making her blood rush faster to her heart, filling her limbs with ringing, heady energy, pushing her forward, ever forward; nothing else mattered but that laughter, nothing else existed, and the golden-skinned face with lips haughtily pursed together finally dissolved into oblivion.

* * *

The two armoured figures, darkly outlined against the silver and crimson moon disks, moved slowly down the path to Riverwood, taking great care to keep to the shadows of trees and rocks, their steps soft, cat-like. The young Redguard with flyaway hair, wearing nothing but a white night gown, did not notice them as she rushed past, on her way to the nearby Nordic barrow - but they noticed her. Exchanging meaningful looks, their eyes flashing bright yellow beneath their bird-winged helms, they slid out of the shelter of a large roadside boulder and ran after her, lightly, effortlessly, as though swept along in the wind's wake, barely touching the ground with the pointed tips of their boots. It was not long before they caught up with her. She did not cry out.

* * *

'I can't believe I am entertaining a talking dog,' Faendal muttered, setting down a bowl of meat in front of his nighttime guest. Barbas gave the bowl's contents a sniff of approval and glanced at his host, the corners of his mouth sliding upwards in a sly smirk, 'And that's jolly decent of you, I must say. I couldn't possibly stay at the Riverwood Trader, now could I? There is too much girly-girl stuff going on there for my liking. And for your kindness, I will be more than happy to share a few words of canine wisdom - wisdom being one of the illnesses you catch when you hang about Daedra Lords. You have any love life issues?'

Before Feandal could think of a coherent answer, the door to his humble home was flung wide open, and in burst Camilla, breathless, ruffle-haired, gesturing frantically. 'It's Kia!' she panted out, almost tumbling over the threshold. 'We... We were playing Truth or Dare, and she said she could race to Bleak Falls Barrow and back... She's been gone for two and a half hours... I went up the mountain trail a bit, and... Well, the earth in one spot... It's really dug up...'

'As if there's been a struggle?' Barbas asked in a most business-like manner. 'Lead the way! We are so investigating this!'

* * *

'There definitely has been a struggle,' Faendal said, getting up from his crouching pose; Camilla had not taken her eyes off him throughout his thorough examination of the deep, wound-like tracks a little to the side of the trail, and he was thankful for the poor light, for he could feel uncomfortable hotness

gradually spreading from his neck to his face. 'Two attackers. Armoured, I think. Can't make out much more'.

'Let me have a go,' Barbas piped in, a little impatiently. Faendal took a couple of steps sideways, making way for the hound; as he did, he found himself unexpectedly close to Camilla and, in a moment of inspiration, dared to take her hand in his and squeeze it reassuringly. 'She will be alright,' he said, barely moving his lips. 'I surely hope so,' she replied, with a faint smile, gently returning his touch.

They both started when Barbas finally dug his nose out of the markings in the earth and announced his verdict, 'These fellows that grabbed our poor Kiara are definitely Altmer. Most Altmery Altmer I've smelled in a while. Not that I've smelled a lot of Altmer. I have better things to do... Anyway, I'd say we're dealing with the Thalmor. From Markarth'.

'You can tell by their _smell_ that they are from Markarth?' Faendal frowned incredulously.

Barbas gave a small, rather condescending snort, 'Pfft. No, of course not. I just did a little putting two and two together here. In fact, I'm known in certain circles as Barblock Dogges. Never mind what that means,' he added in reply to Faendal and Camilla's blank looks. 'Unlike me, you sweet little mortals don't get to travel to other universes'.

* * *

When, late in the following afternoon, Lucan Valerius returned from what he pompously called his 'business trip' to Whiterun (which had basically involved buying some supplies from Severio Pelagia and swapping stories with Belethor at the fireside at the Mannered Mare), he found the following missive carelessly tossed onto what but twenty four hours before had been his sister's pillow,

**_'Gone to the Reach with Faendal and Barbas to save Kiara._**

**_ Won't be back for lunch. _**

**_Sorry for the mess. _**

**_Kisses, C. _**

**_P.S. I have no idea where those copies of The Lusty Argonian Maid came from'_**


	13. The witch who sent this flame: part 2

'She is here, sir'.

'Good,' Ondolemar drained his final goblet and set it down beside the empty wine bottle. 'It is about time. I never realized you had troll blood in you - but it appears you have, seeing how long it takes you to perform a simple task'.

The soldier smiled politely. 'Will you need assistance during the interrogation, sir?' he asked, with a small cough, glancing suspiciously from his superior to the wine bottle and back again.

Ondolemar's eyes narrowed to two slits of yellow fire. 'No,' he replied dryly; his voice was perfectly steady and icy cold, and his face could have made an admirable illustration to the definition of 'expressionless' in a guidebook for young Thalmor - but his fingers were drumming an incessant, strained war march on his desk's edge. 'You should have learned by now that I do not abide being interrupted. Bring her in'.

* * *

This was so very, _very_ exciting. Kiara had been abducted before - by the Dark Brotherhood, after a prank she and the orphans from Honourhall played on the caregiver went terribly awry - but it had been so long ago that she had almost forgotten how fun it was. The moment she realized that, what with being disoriented by the amount of _surprise_ in the armoured strangers' surprise attack, there was absolutely nothing she could do about being forcefully pushed to her knees, paralyzed, gagged and blindfolded, she set her mind to enjoy herself as much as she could under the circumstances. Since out of all her senses only hearing remained in her command, she drank in all the noises around her with the excitement of a child moving into a new home. They must have flung her across the saddle of one of their horses and were now galloping through the night, towards some unknown goal, the wild wind rushing at their side with triumphant howls, the frost-hardened earth ringing beneath the hooves of their mounts. After what had seemed to Kiara to be a thundering eternity, the horses stopped. She was dragged off to the ground and made to stand up. Her limbs gradually coming to live, she shifted from one foot to the other and took a deep, inquisitive breath of air. Her captors did not let her linger; after being given a rather painful prod between the shoulder blades, she staggered forward through what must have been a gateway; it closed behind the three of them with a faint metallic clang, shutting off all the sounds of the wilderness, which were immediately replaced by the drowsy rumble of a waterfall. Soon enough, Kiara's intent, alert hearing was joined by her sense of smell, stirred by the dry, sharp, stinging odour of smoke. They had brought her to Markarth.

* * *

She had never realized that there were so many hidden, unexplored passages in the Understone Keep. And yet there they were, never seeming to end, going up and down and then up again, making her poor legs ache as she was pushed forward, ever forward, an unseen armoured hand gripping her tightly by the shoulder, its fingers pressing deep into her flesh - and it was all so monotonous that she began to feel bored. But just as she went into a mute struggle with the piece of cloth stuffed inside her mouth, almost half way down her throat, as it seemed to her, preventing her from yawning, the passages ended abruptly, the blindfold was torn off her eyes, and the ever-so-rude hand struck her on the back of her head, making her cough on her gag and spit it out. She blinked a few times - and let out a small, half-strangled gasp, 'Lemmie! But... I thought you never wanted to see me, ever...'

The familiar dark-robed figure made no reply. Kiara lifted her eyebrows, her mouth half-open in a hopeful smile, instantly forgetting how miffed she had been about being told not to 'show her disgusting little self' in the Reach and being haunted by Ondolemar's face, 'Does this mean... you wanna be friends again?'

His blazing eyes fixed on her face, Ondolemar gestured to his two soldiers, who were hovering silently behind her back, commanding them to leave. As they slid noiselessly into the shadows, he snapped his fingers; the latch of the metal door slid to, and Kiara found herself locked in a stuffy, not too cheerful room with the kind of thick stone walls that have a tendency to make people claust-something (she had a bad memory for long smart words), furnished only with a small writing desk and a not so small mechanic contraption, which she had not noticed at first and which looked suspiciously torture-related.

Now that they were alone, Ondolemar finally condescended to speak. _'Being friends, _as you call it,' he said in an even, emotionless tone, clasping the fingers of one hand round Kiara's wrist (internally thankful that he could barely feel the warmth of her body through his glove) and unsheathing a small gilded dagger with another, 'Is nothing more than a defensive mechanism humans use to feel stronger - much like wolves and stray dogs gather into packs. Superior beings have no grasp of this concept'.

And as if to underline his last words, he made a deep, long cut in Kiara's forearm, turning away in order not to see her blood. She stared down at her arm blankly; the cut mark swelled almost instantly, a ridge on dark purple standing out against the velvety smoothness of her skin. 'Oh golly,' she mouthed. 'Your dagger's poisoned!'

Ondolemar gave her a slow, complacent nod. 'Combined effects of damaging the target's stamina and magical and increasing the weakness to magic. A little something I came up with in my hours of leisure'.

Kiara's face lit up, 'So you _do_ have a hobby! I knew you did! I am into alchemy too, you know... Have you ever tried combining Chaurus eggs with Luna moth wings? They make you invisible! I have tons and tons of invisibility potions lying around my place in Whiter - you see, once I went to this cave where there were lots of Chauruses... Or is it Chauri?..'

'I have no time for your pathetic imitations of a five-year-old,' Ondolemar snapped. 'We both know perfectly well why you are here'.

'A... pajama party?' Kiara giggled sheepishly, gesturing at her night gown.

Ondolemar leaned over her, his eyes boring into hers, and pushed her in the chest. She swayed and fell backwards; the moment her back touched the torture-related thingamajig, it seemed to spring alive, strapping her to itself faster than she could start apologizing for making a bad joke.

Ondolemar stepped even closer towards her; now she could feel his hot, wine-scented breath scorching her face. 'You are in league with the Stormcloaks,' he said in a fierce whisper. 'All the unspeakable things you did while dragging me around Skyrim under the pretext of helping me find my rogue agent... They were part of a plan to prevent me from performing my duties. You repeatedly humiliated me; you hindered the progress of my investigation; and I also have reason to believe that you put me under a powerful enchantment to make me completely incapacitated'.

Kiara blinked several times, her expression genuinely uncomprehending, 'Enchantment? What enchantment? As in, the one you put on clothes and things? I don't take that class at the College. Ooh, which reminds me, I had an errand to run for Sergius and I forgot all about it...'

'Don't play stupid,' Ondolemar hissed. 'If you didn't meddle with my impeccably organized, crystal clear mind - then why is it that every waking moment I am overcome by an intense longing to see your face, to hear you speak and make that odd sound _(laughter,_ was it?), to have myself tainted by your touch? Why is it that the ludicrous stories you forced upon my ears, the detestable activities you involved me in, the circumstances under which I unexpectedly found myself owing my life to you, a mere human - all come back to me in dreams and memories, over and over? Why is it...' he paused, biting into his lips - and then concluded his vehement array of questions with a barely audible, 'Why is it that sometimes I catch myself thinking that if I were to learn that you were dead... my whole world would come to an end?'

Kiara's eyes reached a whole new degree of roundness. 'Wow,' she breathed in astonishment. 'I feel _exactly_ the same way about you! Except for that last 'world coming to an end' bit; I haven't really thought of that. You think we could have enthralled each other by accident?'

Ondolemar ignored her words - at least, so it appeared. Cupping his fingers around a coiled lightning bolt, in a way she knew only too well, he said curtly, each uttered phrase like a thrust of a blade, 'I want to know it all. Names. Locations. Motives. Do you work alone or do you have accomplices? Do you take orders from Windhelm? Are you seeking to inflict moral damage upon my person, or to disrupt Thalmor operations in general?'

'Gee, Lemmie,' Kiara smiled genially. 'You are _so_ paranoid! Oh hey, I just used a fancy word!'

The little colour that still remained in Ondolemar's face drained completely. _'I. Will. Not. Ask. Again,'_ he said, teeth clenched, nostrils flaring, and all the other scary attributes in place. When the lightning in his palm uncoiled and leapt at Kiara's chest like a venomous snake charging at its prey, she did not scream or writhe in pain - but her lips trembled, and her eyes welled up with tears, like those of a child that expects to get a treat and gets spanked instead. This small grimace seemed to have further enraged Ondolemar; instead of waiting for her to give an answer, as he normally would have done during an interrogation, he cast his spell again and again and again, mesmerized by the sensation of destructive magic bursting out of his fingertips, the wine he had drunk finally going to his head. He stopped only when he ran out of magical energy needed to feed the ravenous lightning before it could be released to tear into Kiara's body - and that was long after she lost consciousness.

* * *

'All right, you conniving scum,' Barbas barked belligerently, as he burst into the Keep, tailed by the somewhat hesitant Faendal and Camilla, 'Where did you take my human? I have an angry Bosmer and an angry Imperial, and I am not afraid to use them!'

The Thalmor soldiers promptly rushed to apprehend the intruding hound and his companions - which inevitably led to a long and not too productive argument, eventually resulting in the would-be saviors being thrown out into the street. And probably, it was all for the best - for had they been successful in finding their way into the supersecret torture chamber, they would have beheld Head Justiciar Ondolemar, kneeling on the cold, hard and exceedingly uncomfortable stone floor, swaying from side to side, pressing the alarmingly limp and motionless Kiara against his chest, his face buried deep into her unruly hair, and shaking all over with dry, silent sobs. And if they had beheld him thusly, the said Head Justiciar would surely have killed all three of them on the spot, because, as he had stated more than once before, no one lives after seeing a Thalmor humiliated.

* * *

'When I came to, he was _healing_ me! Can you imagine that? Healing me! After nearly frying me with his lightning bolts! And they say _I_ have issues with logic!' Kiara laughed at her own words and gulped down the contents of her soup bowl. 'This is delicious, by the way! And you prepared it on the campfire? Boy, you are amazing! Did you learn to cook while you still were a bad guy or after you became a good guy?'

Erandur gave her a dark look; she blushed, 'Whoops, shouldn't have said that. Anyway, the next thing he did was to shove me out into fresh air and repeat that line of his about never wanting to see me again. It was kinda long ago, but I still can't get it out of my head; that's why I decided to tell it to you, since we are the cry-on-each-other's-shoulder type of friends... Though there's really nothing here to cry about, obviously...'

Erandur shook his head softly, as if wondering where Kiara got all the air for her endless, impossibly fast-paced speeches. 'Sometimes I have an urge to dare and ask Her,' he murmured, gazing into the fire, 'What Her reasoning is for some of Her choices...'

'Whose reasoning?' Kiara asked innocently.

Erandur smiled, 'Mara's, of course'.


	14. My Fair Heretic: part 1

_Our hero, our hero _

_Loots the chests for neat stuff,_

_I tell you, I tell you,_

_The Dragonborn comes,_

_With the hands wielding power _

_Of the ancient pick art..._

Kiara paused, both to catch her breath and to figure out how to continue her impromptu song. She never completed that last task, however, for her attention was suddenly captured by a sour-faced young woman in a green cowl strutting down the street towards the Bards' College. 'Why helloooooo there, Aia my friend!' she called out, racing up to her and blocking her way with a toothy smile of greeting. 'Long time no see! Is Pantea around? I have her flute; goll-eee, the things Barbas and I went through to get hold of it! He stayed behind to get some therapy in the Temple of Kynareth; and I've been combing cobwebs out of my hair for hours... Actually, I think I may still have them stuck in there'.

'You do,' Aia replied, without parting her pursed lips. 'How did you ever manage to get on Pantea's good side?'

'I did?' Kiara asked, raising her eyebrows incredulously. 'Last time I talked to her, she sounded like her usual Stop-wasting-my-time self'.

Aia glared at her. 'Stop pretending!' she exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with tears of frustration. 'Pantea is supposed to sing at one of those parties they give at the Thalmor Embassy, and Emissary Elenwen allowed her to take along her most gifted apprentice... And she chose you! _You!'_ Her voice was now almost a shriek. 'Instead of _me!'_

Kiara whistled, 'So _that_ was Delphine's plan...'

'Who's Delphine?' Aia frowned. 'Ah, nevermind - this is not about some random semi-imaginary friend of yours...'

'I wouldn't call Delphine that,' Kiara cut in. 'She has ears everywhere. And these ears might get offended'.

Aia went on, completely disregarding her remark, 'This is about you and me. Ever since you turned up on the College's doorstep, you have been ruining my life! I am the best student here, and I used to get all the attention I deserve - but now everyone goes on and on about you! It's always _Kiara this _and _Kiara that_; _Kiara has been so helpful with the Burning of King Olaf; Kiara has such a wonderful singing voice; Kiara was absolutely brilliant as the Dunmer sorceress in the College's production of A Hypothetical Treachery, especially in the last scene with Viarmo... _They all adore you, and you haven't got _half_ as much talent or diligence as me! Pantea used to be the only one to see reason - but now she has fallen under your spell too! Why - _why_ do you insist on making me miserable?!'

Kiara reached out in attempt to give Aia a hug, with a soothing 'There, there'; Aia backed away, shaking Kiara's hands off her shoulders, chest heaving, eyes flaring beneath knitted eyebrows. Suddenly remembering a completely different person stunning her with very similar accusations, the expression of his face almost identical, Kiara let out a deep, slightly sorrowful sigh, 'What is it with you people that you all think I am out to get you?!'

Aia most certainly had much to say on the subject, but she was never given the chance to do so, for at that moment they were joined by Taarie, who, appearing to have sprung out of nowhere, put her arm unobtrusively round Kiara's waist and drew her away from the indignant young bard, smiling tactfully, 'If you don't mind, I'd like to steal your friend here away for a while. You may go on with scratching out her eyes when I am done with her'.

'Are you _really_ going to perform at the Emissary's party?' she asked in an urgent whisper, as soon as they were out of Aia's earshot.

Kiara shrugged, 'Looks like it. I am always the last to know about these things. You want me to get Elenwen's autograph for you?'

Taarie moved her index finger significantly from side to side, 'You are notsetting one foot inside the Embassy in this abhorrent garb of yours. These are the Thalmor we are talking about! The embodiment of perfection! If you insist on showing yourself to them wrapped in some grimy, smelly leather, you will disgrace your College - no, your whole _race!'_

'I forged this armour myself,' Kiara muttered, pouting. 'And what will _you_ have me wear?'

'Wait and see,' Taarie smiled mysteriously.

* * *

'Oh gods, this is _so_cool!' Kiara craned her neck to an almost humanly impossible extent to examine the gently rustling waves of blue cloth into which Taarie had plunged her. 'I just have one tincy-windy question,' Her voice, initially shrill and cheerful as usual, gradually grew hoarse, as if she was being strangled, 'How do you breathe in this thing?' 'You don't,' Endarie said curtly. 'Not with all this lard on you'.

The corners of Kiara's mouth slid down, 'I quit having brunch last week. Besides, I'm not _that_ fat. I'm an adventurer, I move about a lot - so I think I earn all these yummies. By the way, have you tried mixing fresh snow with milk and berry juice? The snow has to be clean, of course; because, well...'

'Stand still,' Taarie snapped, pushing the last strand of her self-picked customer's flyaway black hair beneath the trailing white cap that she had somehow managed to mount onto her head, her every move silently and rather sceptically scrutinized by her sister from behind the shop counter. 'There. Now we move on to your face'.

'What's wrong with my face?' Kiara asked in alarm. 'I _love_ my face! And I will protect it as if it was my firstborn child, which is kinda weird once you imagine it... But I will still protect it! You know that crazy elven lady that lives down in the Riften Ratway - she actually chased me around with a carving knife; said that my face was _good clay,_ or something...'

Taarie remained unmoved. 'Have you ever paid any close attention to these caterpillars you call eyebrows? They have to be given a proper shape. And it could have occurred to you, at least once in your lifetime, that any lady of refinement uses special dyes and powders to highlight, say, the shape of her eyes'.

Endarie snorted. 'Oh please, dear sister,' she said, rolling up her eyes dramatically. 'You are casting beads before the swine'.

Kiara went into a somewhat childish sulk, 'For the last time: I am not _that_ fat!'

'Stop talking,' Taarie ordered, producing a thick-haired powder brush and pair of long, ominously gleaming pincers. Kiara took a shaky, gasp-like breath, screwed up her eyes and braced herself for the worst.

After an eternity of wriggling and squeaking and giggling at being tickled, Kiara was finally released from Taarie's clutches. The moment the probing, groping, hair-tugging, skin-dusting hands let go of her face, she let out a small cry of relief and rushed to a nearby mirror, almost tripping over the skirt of her new dress. The young woman that stared back at her, bewildered and more than a little sheepish, looked vaguely familiar; she could very well have been Kiara's long-lost relative (especially since, what with her being a founding raised by a meric couple, every Redguard she met in the street was potentially her long-lost relative). She had the same nose and mouth, and the same deep blue eye colour, but that was where the similarities ended. She was taller, her feet crammed inside embroidered shoes with small heels instead of the comfortable, time-worn leather boots in which Kiara had climbed down many a steep flight of stone steps and leapt over many a mountain crag; and slimmer, too, imprisoned within an exceedingly tight-fitting dress, which had replaced Kiara's familiar set of armour, so delightfully flexible and almost completely arrow-proof (except around the knees, which is the common plight of Skyrim warriors). Her hair was hidden beneath a cap, so there was no telling if it was anywhere near as unruly as Kiara's; and her face, with vividly outlined eyes and lips and half-raised, neatly trimmed eyebrows, was like a skillfully crafted, impenetrable cage, behind the bars of which the spirit of laughter living within Kiara was trapped, with a very small chance to escape.

'Well?' Taarie asked expectantly, her arms folded on her chest, her air like that of a sculptor surveying the fruit of his labours.

Kiara lingered with the reply, mentally struggling to come up with something that could be qualified as a compliment; her first impulse had been to bluntly declare, 'This is not me' - and she was pretty sure Taarie would not like that. Finally, struck by a sudden idea, she smiled her usual bright smile, which looked oddly out of place her new, perfectly beautiful, mask-like face.

'I will _definitely_ mingle with the crowd at the Embassy now!' she exclaimed, as cheerfully as she could with unyielding cloth pressing hard against her ribs every time she raised her voice too much. 'I've never looked more like one of those posh, snooty old squares!'

Taarie's left eyebrow twitched slightly. Kiara blushed, sensing that what she had just said was not much better than 'This is not me', and blurted out hurriedly, 'Gee, look at the time! I've got a carriage and a master bard to catch! Do you mind if I pay you with dragon bones?'


	15. My Fair Heretic: part 2

'This Delphine woman is certainly good at persuading people to do things her way,' Pantea said stiffly, edging away from Kiara, who, at a risk of utterly ruining Taarie's masterpiece, was leaning over the carriage's back, the top of her head almost scraping the snowy road, and diverting herself by watching the horses' hooves move. 'I still can't for the life of me figure out how she made me take you instead of Aia'.

'So you _don't_ think I am your most gifted apprentice?' Kiara asked eagerly, flinging herself back into her seat, her brand new attire still miraculously intact... that is, if you did not count the two tears that had appeared along both sides of the bodice the moment she lifted her arms to push herself up into the carriage; Kiara herself had been overjoyed at the loud sound of bursting fabric, for now she was finally able to move less like an automaton. 'You really should tell Aia that; you will make her day'.

Pantea made a displeased, conversation-stopping sniff, and remained morosely silent right until the dreary grey building of the Embassy loomed through the wet hazy veil of snow.

* * *

'These wretched humans, looking up to us with the eyes of a beaten dog crawling in the dust at his master's feet... so pathetic, aren't they?'

Ondolemar started violently and glanced over his shoulder at Elenwen, who had come up to his seat from behind and leaned over to whisper her contemptuous remark into his ear, her hair almost brushing against his cheekbone. 'Emissary,' he scrambled hurriedly to his feet and gave her a reserved bow of greeting.

She smiled in most unsettling way, measuring him up with her cold, venomously yellow eyes. 'It has been a while since we last talked, Justiciar. And it also seems that quite a few of your most recent reports on your operations have failed to reach me on time. Do your couriers keep falling at the hands of the Forsworn?'

Ondolemar bit his lips. The couriers were not to blame for his falling behind with his paperwork; he always employed the services of most capable agents, who, unlike the rest of the couriers, did not have a tendency to show up in unexpected places at the wrong time, sometimes wearing nothing but a hat and a grimy loincloth. The real culprit was he and he alone; never before in his life had he been so irrevocably enthralled by the demon of procrastination. He had lost interest in what he had once found most enjoyable; he carried out his duties listlessly, mechanically; it seemed as if his brain was plunged into heavy slumber, with only a tiny part of it alert - and even that furthest, smallest corner of his mind was only kept alive by a few memories, dominated by a single smiling, carefree face that he both loathed and missed.

'I.. I will see to the matter immediately upon my return to the Reach,' he said, his heart contracting with the haunting suspicion that Elenwen knew the true reason for his missing his deadlines. 'It will not happen again'.

'I surely hope so,' Elenwen replied softly, turning away from him and making a curt, inquiring gesture, addressed to the guard at the door. The solemn armoured figure nodded, 'The bards have arrived, Your Eminence'.

'Good,' Elenwen smiled again, even more unsettlingly. 'I like to keep the plebes entertained'.

* * *

Quite used to performing at events of the highest order, Pantea was the perfection of dignity as she curtseyed to the hostess and exchanged respectful bows with the other members of the distinguished company. Most regretfully, the same could not be said about her apprentice, a round-faced Redguard girl in a blue dress, which - the horror! - appeared to be torn at the seams; she strolled nonchalantly right into the middle of the hall and started gaping about, smiling and waving her hand at each of the guests in a detestably friendly way, as if - the horror again! - they were her equals (Jarl Idgrod of Morthal did return her smile, but she didn't really count). When her gaze fell on Ondolemar, who had returned to his chair in a remote, darkened corner and resumed the very demanding activity of being bored, so unexpectedly interrupted by Elenwen, the genial cheerfulness of the young bard's expression was multiplied by at least ten; she rushed over to him, her feet getting ridiculously entangled in her own skirt; certain eyewitnesses later testified that she actually squealed.

* * *

She was beautiful. So radiantly, intoxicatingly beautiful. He had sensed that beauty before, during their first meetings, concealed within the warmth of her eyes, in the corners of her mouth, peering out of its hiding place on most unexpected occasions, while she was trotting, carefree as a colt, down a mountain trail, or cooking something on the campfire, or waving her arms in the air while telling some wild story... Now, brought out by the delicate strokes of make-up on her face and the outlines of her gown, this beauty stunned him, blinded him, made his feet grow cold and his tongue go numb. Its dazzling brightness poured down on him only for a few moments, however - then he commanded the insane illusion to dissolve, clenching his fists with the effort. His vision finally clearing, he saw before him the painfully familiar little human who insisted on plaguing him. 'Hi, Lemmie!' she said, in that exasperatingly friendly manner of hers. 'Guess what - I had a talk with a friend of mine; he is a priest of Mara, and he has a sad, sad life story... he totally diagn... daign... _diagnosticated_ both of us! Turns out my suspicions were correct - at least, as far as my own state goes. You and me are...'

Paying no attention whatsoever to what she was saying, Ondolemar reached out for the sheet of parchment he had been scribbling on to somehow occupy himself. He took deliberate care to tear off and crumble the part of the sheet where there was a sizeable amount of what looked suspiciously like unfinished drawings and with several badly scrawled lines of barely coherent words, the endings of which (as he was horrified to admit to himself) most definitely rhymed. Then, in a few brisk scratches of his quill, he wrote five short words and pushed the parchment silently towards Kiara.

The message was simple,

_'Do. Not. Talk. To. Me'._

When Kiara looked up from studying it, her expression was surprised and a little offended. Ondolemar, still icily silent, avoided meeting her gaze. She pouted a little, but soon got over being demotivated in such manner, and danced off to the other end of the hall, where she proceeded to clap her hands enthusiastically and cry, 'Go Pantea!' about just as loud as her reluctant mentor was singing.

* * *

'Time is running short,' Malborn whispered significantly when Kiara sprang up to his counter for something to treat her poor, cheer-weary throat with. 'Remember Delphine's plan? You have to hurry up with that distraction of yours. And I mean, _hurry up'._

'Relax, Mal,' Kiara said carelessly, taking a very loud gulp right out a water pitcher. 'I have it all under control. I was planning on using that fellow on the bench over there, a kinsman of mine...'

'Razelan?' Malborn frowned. 'He can barely stand up!'

'Exactly!' Kiara beamed. 'Maybe we ought to start a Pick Razelan Up From The Floor contest! How's that for a distraction?'

Pantea approached them when Malborn's palm was about one decimal of an inch away from his face. 'Kiara dear,' she said with a very treacly, very forced smile, 'The Emissary requests that you sing now. Do not mess up,' she added threateningly out of the corner of her mouth, giving Kiara a slight push in the back so that she found herself facing the semi-circle of guests. Malborn sighed in a we-are-doomed sort of way and concluded the meeting of his face and palm.


	16. My Fair Heretic: part 3

'So...' Kiara began, bobbing up and down on her toes with her hands behind her back. 'Since this is a Thalmor party, I expect you guys will be wanting to hear some song that, uh, what's the word...' She squinted with the effort of fumbling through her mess of a memory. 'Starts with a _d..._ And I am pretty sure it has an _r _and an _i_ in the middle...'

'Derides?' Ondolemar found himself saying, quite against his better judgement.

She beamed at him, the impossible blueness of her eyes yet again completely incapacitating him, 'Yes! Yes! That's totally it! Thank you so much, you very-very-handsome-person-in-the-audience-that-I-am-not-supposed-to-talk-to!' When Ondolemar finally looked away, mentally cursing history for its frustrating tendency to repeat itself, she went on, 'You guys will be wanting to hear some song that _derides_ the Stormcloaks... or at least your average ale-swilling, axe-swinging Nords - no offence to any ale-swilling, axe-swinging Nords that might be listening; personally, I have nothing against them... in fact, some of my best friends...' She bit into her lower lip, her eyes widening. 'Whoops, shouldn't have said that. Anyway, the closest thing I could come up with is a song my pals and I used to sing as kids, back in Stros M'Kai (those were the days! But these are the days as well, of course) to tease a neighbour of ours; he was a great big Nord, about the only one in that part of town, with this thick, hairy beard... Bear the beard in mind, ladies and gentlemen and Thalmor... No, that's not right...' She giggled sheepishly. 'What I am trying to say is, it won't have the same effect if you use it against someone with no facial hair at all - or someone with a stubble, or with that absolutely cute little goatee thing like a certain someone sulking in the corner...' Ondolemar passed his hand involuntarily over his chin. 'I know because I tried to teach this song to the Dunmer in Windhelm, to ding it next time Rolff Stone-Fist comes along - but he doesn't have much of a beard, so it kinda didn't work out...' Almost immediately after she began speaking, Pantea had occupied herself with burning a hole in her apprentice's back with her eyes; apparently, she was doing quite a good job, for, at long last, there came a point when Kiara sensed that something was amiss, gave a small discomforted shudder and hurried to finish her confused introduction with an enthusiastic 'Well, here goes!'.

With a loud gulp of self-encouragement, she stomped each of her feet in turn, her heels making a sharp, click-like sound, brought the palms of her hands together with a ringing clap, swished her head nonchalantly from side to side and chanted, swaying from side to side, her voice tingling with mischief,

_Buddy you're a big Nord, bad Nord,_

_Shouting in the street, bothering the folks all day,_

_You got mead on yo face, you big disgrace,_

_Wavin' yo beard all over the place_

_We will, we will_

_Shave you!_

Kiara repeated the refrain over and over, sometimes intermingling it with a definitely over-zealous urge to 'Sing it!' - which fell on the deafest ears imaginable. When she fell silent, forced to pause for breath after a particularly shrill 'Shave you!', she instantly felt slowly but steadily melted away, not unlike an ice sculpture, by the intense combined glare of several pairs of very disapproving eyes. Pantea rushed to take the matter into her own hands, ushering the awkwardly grinning Kiara out of the spotlight and showering Elenwen, whose eyes had reached an all-time high in venomousness, with flowery apologetic exclamations.

'What exactly did you just try to do?' Malborn asked, peering at Kiara in complete bewilderment, as she leaned idly against his counter and took to watching Pantea perform a much less bearded song, chewing nonchalantly on a sweetroll and toying with Ondolemar's unfriendly message, which she had kept on her person throughout the whole We Will Shave You incident. 'You almost got yourself kicked out! Now will you _please_ stay put until one of us comes up with a _sane_ distraction plan?'

'Uh-huh,' Kiara nodded carelessly, not really listening. 'Oh, wait! I know this tune! You can dance to it!'

'Hey guys!' she called out excitedly, leaping up to Pantea and almost knocking her off her feet. 'Did you know that there's an absolutely terrific dance to this sweet, sweet melody - which Pantea is doing a swell job at playing, by the way... Any of you? No? Then let me show it to you! I'm gonna need a volunteer from the audience! A volunteer from the audience? Please? Anyone?'

Her frantic cries, which rather resembled those of a jester at a children's party, sank into silence like pebbles thrown into a stagnant bog. After a few moments of intense thinking, she appeared to have made up her mind and, trotting over to Ondolemar, grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him to his feet. Despite all the efforts of everything superiorly-bred-mer-ish within him, he could not bring himself to shake her off like the bothersome little gnat that she obviously was. Instead, he allowed her to move his arms and bend them at different angles, as if she were a child playing with a doll, and use him to demonstrate of one of those primitive human leisure activities he could never comprehend. Dancing with a Thalmor - the notion clearly belonged to those inspired by Sheogorath... And yet, in a matter of a few minutes, he suddenly found himself circling round and round the hallway, holding Kiara by the waist, his whole body throbbing with the slow, enthralling music that Pantea mechanically kept playing on her long-suffering flute, her eyes widened in horror. Half-closing his eyes, he bowed down slightly, so that his face and Kiara's almost touched; his grip round her waist tightened, and, giving way to a wild, insane impulse that he was certain he would later come to regret, he parted his suddenly parched lips, knowing, by the excited flutter of Kiara's heart which he could feel through his robe, that they would surely meet hers...

'I think this is quite enough, my young friend'.

Elenwen's cold, calm remark rang over the dreamy music like a slap in the face. Kiara squeaked something incoherent and eeled out of Ondolemar's grasp; the Emissary eyed her from head to foot, giving her the usual feeling that she would get when dealing with the Thalmor - that of being plunged into the Sea of Ghosts - and went on, silkily, 'I am afraid that, fitting as your performing style may be for Nord, uh, what are they called_, ale halls,_ the present company might find it a little unorthodox. I regret to say that from this moment onward the services of your mentor will be more than ample for our needs and that you therefore are dismissed'. Malborn groaned faintly and buried his face in his hands.

Kiara seemed taken aback, but only for a few moments - her face lighting up with a broad smile, she said, 'Sure, I understand. I am way too awesome for this party. I will leave - but before I do, can I have a quick word with Jarl Idgrod? We are old buddies, and I'm afraid we won't have another chance to chat for a long time'.

Elenwen hovered for a while and then, the role of the gracious hostess needing to be lived up to, reluctantly condescended to give her permission. Dazzling her with a toothy smile of gratitude, which had absolutely no effect, Kiara tiptoed up to Idgrod with the air of a conspirator, whispered a few words into her ear and turned dramatically towards the door. But just as she was lifting her foot - with deliberate slowness - to cross the threshold, the worthy ruler of Morthal let out one of the loudest shrieks ever produced by elderly Nord women of nobility, and, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling, went into a long and cryptically confused psychic revelation, which set in motion the rolling stones of pandemonium.

Ondolemar remained completely uninvolved in the wild chase for Razelan, who had taken Idgrod's ramblings about serpents a bit too close to his poor drunken heart and was now running across the hall, tripping over benches, tables and his one feet, in an attempt to escape from a horde of invisible reptiles. He was too busy studying the reply that Kiara had scrawled beneath his resolute _'Do. Not. Talk. To. Me'_ and slipped into his glove while they were dancing. It ran as follows:

_Lemmie,_

_I understand you might be upset about what's going on, it being so totally un-Thalmory and all. But you really shouldn't be. It's all right. I love you too, and I am not the littlest bit scared or ashamed. It is the gift of Mara, and she is a Divine (you guys still include __**her**__ in your list, don't you?) and this has to mean she knows better. At least, she's been real nice to me before, so I trust her._

_I am kind of in the middle of saving the world right now (and no, I don't think you and your gang brought the dragons back, no matter how bad-guyish you might be or what some fake innkeepers might say) - so I won't stick around for long this time... but I'd really, really love to see you again._

_I am missing you already. I always do when we part ways. Which is a very nasty thing, and I think it should stop. The parting ways bit, I mean._

_Love you, love you, love you!_

_Kiara._


	17. Dr Jekyll and Mr Ondolemar

My mind, like that of any mer worthy of the name, is a thing of perfection, composed, rational, and clear as crystal; the vessel of flesh in which it is contained is also, I dare say, impeccable in every possible respect. But of late this purity, granted to me by right of birth and honed over the years like a precious gemstone, has been tainted by a most disturbing presence. I refuse to recognize this alien entity within me as a new trait of my own character; no, it is as if I am being possessed by a completely different person, who goes out of his way to take control over my body and spirit, pushing me aside so that I can watch, helpless, as he commits all manner of atrocious actions under my guise. This insolent intruder, this parasite I am forced to host, makes my behaviour seem undignified and erratic at best; his stance on certain matters is so contrary to my own beliefs that it is almost terrifying - but worst of all, he is an addict. A hopeless, utterly degraded addict, kept alive only by a single desire to quench his repulsive thirst. And it is not skooma that he craves, nor is it any of the other vile substances that serve as gateways to the realms of Sheogorath and Sanguine. His addiction is to a living creature - a being of the lower order; a human; to be even more precise, a female Redguard with a ringing, silvery laugh and eyes that you can drink in like strong wine of deep blue colour... These last ridiculous, raving words were not written by me; it was him, the impostor, that moved my hand, quite against my own will; he emerges from the dark depths of oblivion, ensnaring my mind, assuming command over my body, every time the object of his unnatural affinity is mentioned in any way. His impulses appear to be guided by an intense, insane longing to always be near the aforementioned human, to see her face - through _my_ eyes! - to hear her voice - through _my_ ears! - to feel her breath, to touch her skin, and perhaps to stoop even lower than that - all through _my_ body! Why this all-consuming, despicable addiction came to be in the first place is beyond my comprehension. As I said, the creature that, for the interloper inside my mind, is the equivalent of the strongest skooma, is a human, and for a superiorly bred mer such as myself this fact alone would have been more than enough to avoid her, especially since she does not even belong to the higher class of humans (which is not much of a status, incidentally, since anything is higher than the level of dirt beneath our boots) that the agents of the Dominion are brought into contact as part of fulfilling their duties. No, she belongs to the peculiar class of people that roam the roads of this province in abundance; calling themselves 'adventurers', they seem to find great pleasure in climbing down into the very bowels of old crypts and caverns, dragging out into broad daylight whatever worthless, sickeningly unclean objects of questionable origin that they dig up within, and searching for fools that can be coaxed into buying their finds. As if this degrading life calling was not enough, the human wretch possesses none of those few almost negligible shreds of dignity and intellect which sometimes distinguish certain humans among their brethren, making them somewhat, albeit insignificantly, more tolerable. She has the disposition of a ten-year-old child, intent on never, under no circumstances, taking anything seriously and passing through life with the ease and mindlessness of a forest beast; her chief occupation, aside from smearing the remains of some long-dead Nord savage all over herself and doing various exceedingly humiliating menial tasks for other humans, appears to be 'making friends', as she calls it... And it is in the wake of this insufferable, exasperatingly enthusiastic, loud-voiced, ever-smiling abomination that I am dragged across the entire expanse of this gods-forsaken land, driven by the invisible being inside of me. The intruder uses any excuse to be close to her and to remain by her side for as long as possible - like for any addict, for him enough is never enough. And by using my hapless self to do his bidding, he does not compromise my reputation alone - he hinders the entire Cause of the Thalmor.

It has recently come to our knowledge that the Redguard, who at first glance could have appeared harmless if utterly irritating, is in reality a dangerous heretic - although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that, with her level of mental development, she herself does not realize it. Our suspicions were proved true after a series of incidents, in a particular the infamous jailbreak at Northwatch Keep, which she definitely had a hand in orchestrating, and the fiasco at one of the receptions that the First Emissary hosts at the Embassy for our human supporters. The wretch had somehow found a way to get hold of an invitation and, after completely ruining the entire event (I still find it hard to come to terms with the realization that at one point the usurper of my mind almost succeeded in forcing my lips and tongue into touching hers) stole a number of valuable files, including the dossiers of Ulfric Stormcloak and of the last Blades not yet eliminated by our forces. Naturally, this immediately turned the meddlesome human into a target of the prime category, to be attacked and brought down on sight, and the First Emissary commanded me to rally all my available agents - the hunt had begun, and every single Justiciar was needed on it. How the interloper within me writhed when I heard my orders, making my face drain of all colour and turning my 'It will be done' into a barely audible, tremulous whisper... How he struggled with me as I sat at my desk, working on the text of a missive to be distributed among all my Justiciars, trying to take control over my right hand and stop me from writing the words, 'Her death is seen by the First Emissary as essential'. He was in agony; I could sense that - an addict about to be forever deprived of the object of his longing, the source of his elation, the very essence of his existence... I was certain, so certain that I had finally triumphed over him, that soon he would be gone from my life forever, together with the human he was so obsessed with... But now I know that I was terribly wrong.


	18. A Whole New Level

'Wait, are you writing a diary? Really? At a time like this?'

Ondolemar gave a violent start and, snapping shut the small journal which concealed beneath its dark, quality-leather cover the musings of a superiorly bred mer haunted by most unsettling feelings, shot a hurried but still effective lightning bolt at Barbas, who yelped with pain and indignation and crawled into the shadows beneath the carriage seat facing the Thalmor's.

The carriage driver turned his head, ever so slightly - after all, it's not too often that you see a bad-tempered elf, who might or might not be a Thalmor agent wearing civilian clothing, argue with a talking dog - but when he caught a glimpse of Ondolemar's face, he hastened to focus back on the reins in his hands and the road ahead.

'I will not be judged by a dog,' Ondolemar hissed, applying the conventional eyes-flashing-under-hood technique to make his point sink in. Barbas, clearly, was far less impressed than the driver.  
'You didn't forget, did you,' he asked venomously from his darkened hiding place, 'That there is a young girl, nearly plummeted to death, right there, on the same seat with you - or has it slipped your mind already?'  
'Oh, that little wretch is constantly on my mind! Not that I can help it!' Ondolemar cried out in frustration, biting into his lower lip the instant those treacherous words escaped his mouth.

Perhaps roused by his raised tone, Kiara stirred at his side, groaning faintly. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and said irritably, 'Stop whining! We've almost reached our destination!' And then, quietly, so that no one, not even his own internally protesting self, would hear, he added, 'I am here. At your side. No more harm will come to you. I promise'.

***

He had no business riding all the way to Riften, tracking down that thieving little blue-eyed heretic. More than enough capable agents were already on her trail, ready to hinder her supposed meeting with her Blade accomplice.

He had no business changing out of his uniform into a simple black robe - so bland and tasteless compared to what he was accustomed to wearing - and listening in on conversations at that detestable hole of a local inn - what was it called again, The Fly and Something? - in an attempt to determine if she had arrived yet. Upon entering, he had spotted one of Elenwen's Khajiit hirelings, doing just that; which meant that he, the commander of the Justiciars, was doing the job fit only for that Skooma-sucking cat spawn.

He had no business exposing his precious self to foul sewer fumes while pacing along the side of the canal in the evening gloom and planning his next move (having withdrawn from the inn on account of a most unhealthy amount of spit flying in his direction from some drunken old Nord... and also on account of a sudden, inexplicable and irresistible urge to stun the said Nord with a couple of verses from the ill-fated We Will Shave You song). He had more than enough matters to attend to back in Markarth, and yet... there he was, driven here, to this rat-, thief-, and Stormcloak-infested mud pile, by the alien force that stirred within him whenever he crossed paths with that bothersome Redguard girl. He knew, deep down, that he had not come to Riften to apprehend her - he had come to warn her. To save her. To shield her, against his own better judgement, from the righteous wrath of the Aldmeri Dominion.

This train of thought was enough to make Ondolemar want to pick up something heavy and toss it into the sleepily slurping water, preferably with a scream. As it turned out, this impulse seemed to be quite the popular trend that night, for just as he was considering actually searching for something toss-into-water-able (a rock, a piece of firewood, or maybe a sleeping beggar), two large, bulky figures loomed out of the darkness, clearly making their way towards the canal and carrying what vaguely resembled a sack between them. This sack they promptly proceeded to haul up and over the wooden railing and drop down, without paying the slightest bit of attention to the silently and bewilderedly watching Ondolemar.

No splash came as the sack landed; it must have missed the water and fallen onto the wooden planks of the lower pier. One of the figures shifted, clearly uncertain what to do next. 'Uh, Maul?' it asked in just the kind of gruff, not too intelligent, Nordish voice that always made Ondolemar cringe as if he heard nails scraping on a window pane. 'Should we go down and shove her in?'.  
The other one shrugged. 'Nah. Can't be bothered. The Redguard brat was so much trouble, I just wanna go home and do something about my leg. You seen the size of her dog's teeth?'  
'But Maul,' the hesitant figure insisted, 'If she don't sink, she might live'.  
'Oh no she won't. I know my stuff. If Maven tells me to show people the colour of their insides, they damn well see it. Trust me, in the morning some poor sod from the Fishery will find the Goody Two Shoes Thane of the Rift,' the one addressed as Maul raised his voice, also unbearably Nordish, in a mocking, high-pitched imitation of a certain young woman's manner of speaking; this imitation, however crude, made Ondolemar, whose face had already started to drain of colour at the mention of a Redguard and a dog, grow so pale that his skin might have glowed in the moonlight. 'Who's had a sad, sad accident coming down them slippery steps'.

Maul's associate laughed, slowly, thickly. 'That squirt sure made a mistake taking all that Thane dung seriously,' he gloated. 'Making things right, she called it? Well, nobody goes about 'making things right' in Maven Black-Briar's city; ain't it right, Maul?'  
Now laughing together, in low, complacent grunts, the two withdrew, apparently more than satisfied with a job well done.

Ondolemar's first impulse had been to haul a fireball after them before they were completely swallowed up by the thickening murk; but he managed to contain it, rushing instead down the wooden stairway, towards the stagnant canal. The stench that rose from the water might have been tolerable for all those Nords, and Dark Elves, and lizardmen, and whatever other inferior beings that skulked around in this excuse for a city - but for his delicate senses it was almost too much. It engulfed him whole, clinging to the inside of his nose and throat, making him shut his eyes and sway, retching. With what he himself later called 'an admirable display of willpower', he struggled to push himself forward, moving as though through thick mist, eyes - which he had little short of torn open - focused on the small dark shape curled up in strange, unnatural pose on top of an abandoned coil of fishing tackle.

His premonition had been correct. It was her. Kiara. The blue-eyed Redguard. _His_ blue-eyed Redguard, as, to his utmost horror, he found himself mentally calling her. Motionless. Uncannily silent. Her round, childishly open face, which he had so rarely seen without a smile, twisted in a grimace of pain and shock, warped by an ugly purple bruise and a fresh, deep, oozing cut... Life trickling out of her, one drop at a time, in a thin red-black ribbon that came out of the corner of her mouth and then disappeared in her mane-like hair...

For a moment, he stood transfixed, looking down at her, almost as helpless as she was. It was just like that disgraceful incident in the torture chamber, which still remained branded deep into his memory, far deeper than he would have preferred. Just like then, seeing her unconscious made the inside of his chest suddenly grow icy cold and strangely... empty. And deep within that cold, echoing emptiness, Ondolemar the Thalmor jeered triumphantly. Ironically enough, those two Nord ruffians had just made things so perfectly easy for him. All that was left for him to do was to turn back, and walk away, and pretend that nothing even remotely Kiara-connected had ever happened in his life.

But then, another Ondolemar chimed in - a different one; so different, in fact, that he barely qualified to be an Ondolemar at all. And as always, it did not take this Ondolemar long to take over... so when Barbas the hound finally raced out of the dark, narrow alleyway where he had been lying knocked out by a well-aimed kick from Maul (who for some reason did not appreciate his shins being bitten), he beheld a tall robed figure coming slowly up the steps that led to the canal, carrying an unmistakably Kiara-shaped object in his arms.

'Hey there, buster!' the faithful beast barked threateningly. 'Where do you think you are going with my human?!'  
'To Markarth,' was the curt reply.

***

'Remind me, why are you dragging Kia here, barely patched up with that lousy little spell of yours, all the way to Markarth?'

The Thalmor curled his lips in an indignant grimace. It was the second time he had to heal Kiara's injuries - though this time they were not inflicted by him - and he had done his best, despite all the distracting effects of feeling her bare skin with his fingertips... and that dog dared to insult his skill!

Barbas promptly pushed himself further beneath the carriage seat, seeing a spell flare up yet again in his short-tempered travel companion's hand, but still went on, 'She has a house in Riften as well, you know - and also happens to know a templeful of priests who could help us out! And I mean, normal, heal-badly-injured-folks type of priests, too! Those Dibellan ladies give me the creeps!'

'You wanted me to keep her in the city where there is a gang of numb-skulled scoundrels out to get her?' Ondolemar could not resist the temptation to raise his eyebrows. 'I myself have been in the business of being out to get people most of my conscious life - so I know that would not have been a wise decision. And besides...'  
He was about to add, 'I need to return to my duties, but I can't bear letting her out of my sight,' but checked himself and instead asked, his voice a little alarmed, 'What was that sound?'

With evident reluctance, Barbas crawled out into the open and leaned out of the carriage, his head cocked to one side, his ears raised in an effort to sift through the whispers of the wilderness. It did not take him long to hear it too. Footsteps. Heavy, thumping footsteps in their wake, slowly but steadily gaining on them. 'By Sheogorath's favourite sandwich, this can't be good,' he muttered; then, he turned towards the carriage driver and called out, 'I say, buddy, could you turn up the speed a bit?'  
The driver shook his head, 'No can do, Mr. Dog sir'. A strange way to address a passenger, to be sure, but the elf had paid handsomely for the whole lot of them, and where there is gold, there is respect... And there also is respect where there is the risk of getting your bones fried with a spell, or getting your heels bitten. 'Them horses been gallopin' all night, they're tired...'  
'But can't you hear?!' Barbas insisted. 'Sounds like we are being chased by a giant! No, wait, scratch that: _looks_ like we are being chased by a giant!'

And surely enough, there he was, fresh out of the grey pre-dawn fog, striding after the carriage, club on the ready, grunting something far from friendly, eyes glowing beneath knitted bushy eyebrows like two miniscule, exceptionally malevolent torchbugs.  
'Darn it all, this fellow sure has a long memory!' Barbas exclaimed, drawing himself back into the carriage.  
'You know this giant?!' Ondolemar and the driver asked in a startled chorus, the latter suddenly, and passionately, wishing he had never as much as laid eyes on that accursed elf's gold.

'Yeah,' Barbas nodded gravely. 'A longish while ago, Kia and I managed to really get his goat. Literally. Though technically, it was not even his goat to begin with... Look out!'

Moments after the hound's bark of warning, the giant, who was now well within reach of the carriage, made a broad step forward and brought his club down right on the spot where the barely conscious Kiara sat leaning against Ondolemar's shoulder. The horses reeled to their hind legs with a shrill neigh of terror and, all weariness forgotten, bolted blindly off the path and into the misty wilds, leaving behind the dim outlines of the goatless giant, who was standing in the middle of the road, his knees bent slightly, scratching his beard thoughtfully, still clinging on to his club, and of carriage driver, who had been tossed off at the very first bump - or maybe jumped off of his own accord - and was now limping with all his might, trying to put as much distance between himself and the giant as possible.

Sadly, all his limping proved to be in vain - for very soon, the giant snapped out of his reverie, and, maybe frustrated at the thought that now he would never catch up with the frenzied horses, or maybe just carried away by the whole club-swinging spirit, struck the ground with a single mighty blow, the impact of which made the unfortunate driver shoot high into the air, not unlike a stone thrown out of a catapult - and, quite logically, fall to earth, the giant knew not where. He was discovered late the following afternoon, clinging for dear life to a ship's mast in the Solitude docks, which made a certain maid from the Blue Palace wonder if the gods had finally heeded her prayers and sent her a handsome prince right from their domain in the sky... But that is quite a different story.

***

The carriage lurched and swung from side to side, making the three passengers do a pretty convincing imitation of the contents of a child's rattle. Their surroundings rushed by in an insane grey blur, but, blinded as Ondolemar and Barbas were by the world tossing and turning in front of them and by the wild wind lashing at their faces and making their eyes water, they nevertheless could very well make out that the poor club-shocked beasts were driving them straight towards the edge of a cliff.

'We! Have! To! Jump! Out!' the hound managed to blurt out in between bumps on the head.  
'We! Are! Doing! No! Such! Thing!' Ondolemar responded in a similar fashion. 'I! Have! A! Plan!'

Barbas attempted to produce a sarcastic 'Oh?' - but, as it turns out, you cannot 'Oh?' sarcastically when your tail is stuck between your teeth. And in any case, Ondolemar cared little for the hound's thoughts on the matter - with great effort, knees shaking, fingers twitching in an attempt to grope for any possible support, he straightened himself up and edged slowly towards the driver's seat. Having gained a foothold, he took a deep, steadying breath, stretched out his hand and began charging up a calming spell to cast on the horses. As he focused on the warm light beating against his cupped fingers, like a tiny heart, he could not help but remember the beginning of that fateful journey in search of Sanyon, when Kiara had used the very same spell on his horse, frightened by the advance of a dragon. And then, he had actually...

One of the carriage wheels struck a stone and shot off its peg, rolling down into the grass. The painful memory of the bloody scratches on Kiara's cheek dissolving, his whole body suddenly growing numb, Ondolemar barely had time to release his spell before what once had been a fine, if not completely giant-proof, means of transportation, turned over and tumbled down in a pile of dry, splintering wood, and everything spiralled rapidly into darkness...

The morning mist never dissolved, becoming one with the overcast sky, sewn to it with fine silvery threads of rain. The sparkling droplets of water danced, carefree, indifferent, on the bowing grass blades, and on the glistening rocks, and on the great dark bulk of the overturned carriage, which lay sprawled in a small clearing like the carcass of a dead animal.

'By Vile, I didn't get a single scratch!' Barbas observed, tugging his body out of a gap between two wooden planks. 'Guess being an at-least-thrice-reincarnated companion of a Daedra Lord does play a certain part in things, sometimes! What about you, Lem - you good? Pfft, of course you are good; it's Kia we have to worry about! Hey, Lem? Lemster? Lemmings?'  
He fell silent and, blinking the rain out of his eyes, peered in bewilderment at the rather battered-looking robed figure, kneeling in front of a pile of rubble.

Whatever effect Ondolemar's healing spell might have had on Kiara, it was completely annihilated by the blow of the giant's club and falling out of the broken carriage. She was once again still and silent and ragdoll-like - but now these alarming symptoms were joined by the greyish hue of her skin and the cold, the icy cold that almost scorched Ondolemar when he touched her. For several agonizingly long minutes, he stared unblinkingly into her mask-like face, and then tore apart his lips and spat out a hoarse, angry, helpless order,  
_'You!_ Don't you dare be dead! Do you hear me?! I... I forbid it! Who do you think you are, tormenting me like this?! If you took it into this air-filled head of yours that the heart of a Thalmor is something to be trifled with - you are wrong! Wrong! Upon my word as the officer of the Aldmeri Dominion, you cannot, must not, _will not_ be dead!'

'You do realize how crazy this sounds, right?' Barbas asked mockingly; but then, as he drew a little closer to Ondolemar, who seemed to be paying no attention to him whatsoever, the expression on his sly furry snout changed slowly. 'Wait a minute... Wait a goddarn, cheese-filled minute... You aren't crying, are you? Tell me that's just rainwater trickling down your crooked nose...'  
'My nose is not crooked,' Ondolemar said, still without deigning to turn towards Barbas, in a very peculiar, half-strangled voice, his lips twitching. 'It has a... a noble curve to it'.

He almost choked on his last words, the 'it' sounding particularly sob-like. The hound let out a snort of shock. 'By Clavicus' twisted sense of humour, you _are_ crying!'

'Leave me be,' Ondolemar breathed wearily. The strange, burning pain that flared up within his chest and tore its way out through his eyes left him completely drained of willpower, with no strength left to be angry with the insolent hound, let alone to be horrified at his current state.

Barbas rolled up his eyes in exasperation, 'Oh, please! I understand that this rain obliges you to be all dramatic, but come on! Instead of breaking down like a house built by a Skooma addict, you should take some sort of measures and things! For instance, I know for a fact that a fellow with eyebrows like yours has to carry a mirror around at all times!'  
Ondolemar finally tore his gaze away from Kiara and gaped at Barbas, uncomprehending.

'Well?' the hound urged him. 'Out it comes!'  
The Thalmor obeyed mechanically, thrusting his hand inside the satchel he was wearing at the side of his robe's excuse for a belt, and winced, having cut himself on broken glass. 'It smashed,' he said faintly as he fished out a handful of sharp-edged shards.  
'Well, seven years of bad luck will do you a world of good,' Barbas replied indifferently. 'Now, stop doing your imitation of a dying netch and check on Kia'.

Understanding slowly dawning on him through the haze that engulfed his mind, Ondolemar picked out one of the larger shards and pressed it hard against Kiara's lips. Barbas turned away, growling something under his breath - for he knew that if that glass didn't fog, he would throw a fit to rival Ondolemar's.

There was a long, long pause, of the kind that are usually called 'pregnant' - which finally gave birth to a shrill, almost hysterical burst of laughter, coming out of the most unlikely source in the world - the throat of a Thalmor. 'She is breathing!' Ondolemar cried out, clasping the front of his robe with his hands to prevent his heart from leaping out and exposing its contents to the outside world. 'Thank the Eight, she breathing!'

Then, gradually regaining composure, he shot a quick scorching glance at Barbas, and added, 'I am afraid I will have to kill you when this is over. Because...'  
'Yeah, I know, I know, no one lives after seeing a Thalmor humiliated,' Barbas concluded his sentence with a yawn. 'But there is one major snag: I am immortal!'

'I could at least erase your memory,' Ondolemar suggested with a venomously amiable smile.  
But before Barbas could start dwelling on this alternative strategy, they were joined by two blurry silhouettes, approaching from the depths of the wet mist at the pace of a carefree trot. Barbas yapped gleefully and even went so far as to wag his tail. 'The horses, Lemmington!' he cried. 'The horses are coming back! Guess your calming spell did work after all!'

This whole thing was anything if not confusing. First, there were these two large, menacing figures that sprung up on her out of the blue, blue twilight, flexing their muscles and moving their lower jaws from side to side and exciting a whole set of other obvious traits of meanness.

Then, one of the said figures gave the following little speech, 'We are on to you, little Thane. You've been snooping around where you don't belong. In the Bunkhouse. In the Keep. In the Ratway. You are nosier than that Mjoll woman. Well, guess what - it's the last time you and your nose work together'.

And then, just as she was about to make a comment on this being easily the weirdest conclusion of an intimidation ever - or maybe she did make that comment, she was not entirely sure - the scene changed abruptly. She was now lying in a bed, staring down at a pair of dimpled, dark-skinned arms, which she vaguely recognized as her own - except that the last time she checked, her arms did not have such an insane amount of bandages wrapped round them. She felt snug and warm and drowsy - but when she tried to move, her left side was pierced by sharp, throbbing pain.

Knitting her eyebrows in a most bemused way, she allowed her eyelids to slide shut and ordered her ears to search for anything that might give her a clue as to what could possibly be going on. Presently, she heard a voice, low and thoughtful, talking in a way someone talks when he is alone. She recognized that voice; its sound made her blush involuntarily as she sank deeper into the softness of her pillows and prepared to listen.

'I have tried and failed many times to fight the emotions you invoke within me. What I feel when by your side is degrading... foolish... unbecoming for one of my station... and yet exceedingly enjoyable. It is as if you led me to the edge of a precipice, and then looked at me with those unfathomably blue eyes of yours - and I knew I had to jump. I am still falling, still falling... Every now and again, I attempt to find something to hold on to, something to bring me back to the point where I leapt from. But I never try hard enough, because the fall thrills me... Perhaps I am not falling at all... Perhaps I am flying... Oh gods, what am I saying? What has become of me? This is just it: I have searched for an explanation of this delirium's origin since the day it started... since the day you first came to Markarth... I could not find it. At one point, I assumed that it was a powerful Illusion spell; at another, that I was being possessed... But maybe - just maybe! - the truth lies in the crazy little note you slipped me back at the Embassy... Maybe I do, in fact... Of course, that makes no sense... But assuming that such breaches in the perfect order of nature do occur... This would mean that I... _I love you'._

Her eyes now wide open, Kiara beamed broadly and, sliding her hand across the blanket, found the fingers of the brooding Thalmor sitting hunched at her bedside - which made his back look like a question mark - and clasped them in hers. Ondolemar did not react to her touch, petrified by the sudden realization that his confession had become public domain.

'You were _so_ not supposed to hear that,' Barbas muttered from under the bed.


	19. My Girlfriend is a Dragonborn: part 1

It really was the most logical, the most natural, the most impossibly disgraceful (as Ondolemar tried to tell himself) thing to do, what with the ice broken and Ondolemar's terrible, terrible crime of falling in love with a human admitted to. The first time - shortly after the multitude of healing incantations and spells poured over and into Kiara took effect and she was finally able to move without making apologetic little groans of pain - was easy.

All Ondolemar had to do was lean over her as she lay in bed, luxuriating in the first rays of the morning sun falling across her blanket, and bite greedily into her lips, and feel the entire universe - including Barbas, who was covering his eyes with his paws like a good, tactful pet, - slip away from him as he finally reached the bottommost point of his fall... or maybe the topmost point of his flight.

And all Kiara had to do was cling tight to the front of his robes and drag him down onto the blanket beside her, and laugh a dazed, insane, happy laugh as he tore his mouth out of hers and moved to her ears, and then her neck, his lips and the quivering tip of his tongue tickling her skin - especially that space between her collar bones; it flushed bright crimson with the heat sent in wild, pulsing waves by her heart, which seemed to have leapt upwards from its rightful place in her chest, travelling inside her throat in the wake of Ondolemar's touch.

* * *

The first time was easy. The other dozens and dozens of times, not so much. Eventually, this not-so-muchness reached such an alarming degree that Ondolemar had to call for an emergency meeting in his quarters in the Understone Keep, which Kiara (and Barbas, though he was not officially invited) reached in perfect stealth mode, stomachs gurgling slightly due to the not so perfect quality of a couple of hastily brewed Invisibility potions.

'Something needs to be done,' Ondolemar announced resolutely, slapping his hand on a small, thickish notepad that lay on the desk in front of him.

Barbas stood on his hind legs and, resting his snout on the desk's edge, peered suspiciously at the little volume. 'What's this, another diary?' he asked, with a barely traceable shade of disdain.

'It is my personal organizer,' Ondolemar elaborated pompously. 'Having one is an integral part of one's superior breeding.'

Kiara snickered into her fist; Ondolemar's favourite sound bite always made her think of horses, and imagining an equine version of your favourite Thalmor is certainly no boring pastime.

Ondolemar ignored her, 'I keep track of all our so-called Operations'.

'Really? Let me see!' Kiara exclaimed eagerly, her mental image of a little Ondolemar-like pony dissolving with a small 'pop!', and reached out for the organizer. As she leafed through it, squinting at the miniscule handwriting, Ondolemar watched her, somewhat uneasily, over her shoulder; suddenly, he grabbed her by the wrist, 'You might want to flip over this page'.

'Why?' Kiara asked innocently.

He bit his lips. 'It's... It's the list of all the people I've arrested. Gods, why do I always explain myself to you?!'

'Because that's what mature people in a relationship do,' Kiara said wisely, lifting the index finger of her free hand with an air of great importance (most likely mock); then, without even pausing for breath, she immediately changed her tone to a childishly curious one, 'What do all the cute little stars stand for?'

'The stars are instances where extreme interrogation methods were recommended,' Ondolemar replied reluctantly.

'Extreme interrogation methods my tail!' Barbas growled. 'Why don't you call a spade a spade, a mudcrab a mudcrab, and torture torture?'

'You are horrible,' Kiara declared.

'I've always known that,' Ondolemar said, with a snort. 'Why don't you just get rid of the dog? Send him back to his Daedric master?'

'No, no, no!' she shook her head energetically, prodding him in the chest. _'You_are horrible!'

'Correction,' he objected softly, moving his head closer to hers so that their lips almost touched. _'You_are horrible'.

'Well, you are _more _horrible,' she whispered, the last word melting away into a long kiss.

* * *

'You sly little human!' Ondolemar exclaimed suddenly, mentally commanding his hands to stop wandering around Kiara's waistline and taking an abrupt step back. 'Give me the list, this instant! I know you've torn it out! Now hand it over! You are not rescuing these heretics!'

Kiara dazzled him with one of her radiant, ear-to-ear grins. 'Try and stop me if you can!', she chanted teasingly, doing a little 'I Dare You' dance, which mostly consisted of hops, first on one foot, then on the other.

Barbas let out a loud, attention-drawing barking cough, 'Shall we return to the matter at hand?'

'Oh, right,' Kiara giggled sheepishly and skimmed through the remaining sections of the organizer, successfully evading Ondolemar's searching hands as he persistently tried to discover the list of prisoners on her person (though it could have been just an excuse). Finally, she came across what she was looking for - a most curious chart, which deserves to be quoted.

* * *

_**Operation Flying Shadows**__**Planned procedure:**_

Ondolemar descends out of the Keep's window at night, using a rope and wearing face-concealing armour (which still compliments his fine athletic build). Having thus left his quarters unnoticed, he goes to a specified location. Kiara meets Ondolemar at said location, and the two proceed accordingly.

_**Actual events:**_

_The rope, its quality being beyond unsatisfactory, tears almost to the point of snapping in two, leaving Ondolemar in a life-threatening, not to mention humiliating, position in mid-air. The movements of his legs, in particular, produce a most ridiculous, unbecoming impression - through no fault of his. Kiara has to climb up a steep rocky surface to free Ondolemar from his current predicament. To her credit, she does this fast enough to give herself and Ondolemar time to flee from the town guards, who, due to their sad lack of intelligence, have mistaken them for thieves. The two spend the rest of the night pretending to be Dwemer statuary while the guards canvass the territory in search of unknown perpetrators._

* * *

_**Operation C & C**__(name suggested by Barbas, an apparent incomprehensible cross-universe reference)_

_**Planned procedure:**_

Kiara conceals herself by being rolled up inside one of the tapestries bearing the symbols of the Aldmeri Dominion, which, according to the orders of First Emissary Elenwen, are to be installed as decorations in the Jarls' palaces in the cities that support the Empire. The aforementioned tapestry is brought to Ondolemar's quarters, Kiara reveals herself, and the two proceed accordingly.

_**Actual events**__:_

Thongvor Silver-Blood bursts in on the Jarl, vehemently protesting against the new tapestries and spewing out all manner of outrageous accusations against the Dominion (reminder: work on getting him removed). The Jarl attempts to reason with him, but he remains deaf to words of wisdom - not surprisingly - and in a fit of rage, orders the guards to toss the tapestries into the canal by the smelters. The guards obey; Kiara, still inside the tapestry, risks drowning, but is aided by the smelter workers, who show remarkable resourcefulness and finesse, quite surprising for savage natives.

* * *

_**Operation Caged Bird.**__**Planned procedure: **_

Unclear; the operation is entirely the product of Kiara's machinations.

_**Actual events: **_

While Ondolemar is overseeing the process of a prisoner being escorted by his Justiciars to Northwatch Keep for interrogation, a woman in a full set of steel plate armour emerges from behind a roadside rock, blocking the agents' way. She frees the prisoner, who flees the scene. After his subordinates leave in pursuit of the escapee, Ondolemar finds himself face to face with the woman, whom he promptly strikes with a lightning bolt. But as she surrenders and takes off her helmet, it is revealed that she is, in fact, Kiara. With no one in the vicinity, the two proceed accordingly; however, they are soon interrupted by the returning Justiciars, who, judging by what they see from the distance, conclude that Ondolemar and Kiara are engaged in close combat and launch an attack. Kiara uses a potion to turn invisible and escape, but not before getting a few arrow wounds, none of them in the knee, which, for some reason, she deems very important.

* * *

_**Operation Royal Night.**__**Planned procedure: **_

Ondolemar uses his superior intellect to move the date of the meeting between the representatives of the Thalmor and the Empire, to be held in Castle Dour in Solitude, so that it coincides with the weekly Burning of King Olaf (a primitive festival involving savage dances and a vast consumption of food and beverages of dubious origin). The pandemonium that usually reigns in the streets on such occasions is enough to create a diversion and thus to allow Ondolemar to separate himself from the rest of the delegation. Ondolemar slips into the building of the Bards' College, whose inhabitants are all outside indulging Sanguine. Kiara meets him there, and the two proceed accordingly.

_**Actual events: **_

Ondolemar fulfills his part of the operation flawlessly, as expected of a mer such as himself. Kiara, on the other hand, happens to cross paths with one Octieve San, an alcoholic of an exceedingly questionable reputation, whose level of inebriation is, quite logically, higher than usual. Seeing the necklace Kiara is wearing (ordered by Ondolemar - incognito - from the Markarth silversmiths, most skilled artisans, though humans), San mistakes it for an Amulet of Mara and pursues Kiara with a 'Let's get hitched!' battlecry. As she flees from him, Kiara enters the courtyard of the Bards' College, where the Headmaster is about to burn the King's effigy. She pushes the Headmaster - due to her innate human clumsiness; - the burning effigy topples, and everything flammable in the surroundings promptly ignites. Thus, Ondolemar finds himself trapped within the College while there is a fire raging outside. Kiara forces her way into the building, sustaining several burns; the smoke disorients her, and by the time she locates Ondolemar, she is on the verge of suffocation. In a superior display of chivalry, Ondolemar carries Kiara out in his arms; once out of harm's way, the two proceed accordingly. They do not proceed for long, however, hindered by the resurfacing San, who dares to defile Ondolemar's person by pounding him with his fists and claiming that he had 'stolen his girl'. It is only the arrival of Ondolemar's colleagues, who have finally disentangled themselves from the revelling crowd, that saves San from being incinerated.

* * *

_**Operation Dynamo**__**Planned procedure**__:_

Ondolemar and Kiara gain entry to the Dwemer Museum, climb inside a dormant Centurion and, thus concealed from prying eyes, proceed accordingly.

_**Actual events: **_

Whilst inside the Centurion, Kiara, allegedly by accident (still not sure if 'It was dark, and I thought I was touching your sweet shaved head!' is a valid excuse), activates some sort of obscure Dwemer mechanism, which causes the Centurion to come to life and move out of the Museum, sweeping down all that stands in its way, with Ondolemar and Kiara still inside it. Lumbering through the Keep, the automaton wreaks utter havoc. The guards attempt to put it down with spells, but their efforts - as always - have little effect. The scene reaches its climax when the construct seizes Calcelmo the researcher and lifts him high in the air, presumably with the intention of tossing him on the ground and then crushing him. However, Kiara and Ondolemar prevent it from doing so by disengaging its dynamo core; the Centurion winds down and falls to the ground. It is likely, though not confirmed, that Calcelmo breaks a leg in the process. Ondolemar and Kiara still have to spend a few hours within the contraption, while its fate is being debated by the court, which has gathered round it, thus nullifying any chance of a stealthy exit. Eventually, the Jarl rules that the Centurion will have to be melted down. By sheer luck, it is left unattended for a while, the court having retired and Calcelmo having departed in search of the tools needed to dismantle the automaton, and Ondolemar and Kiara set themselves free.

* * *

'Do you see it now?!' Ondolemar exclaimed emphatically when Kiara finished reading. 'Our situation is nigh on hopeless! You know perfectly well that I have contained my feelings far too long, and every moment spent away from you makes me suffer - and I don't like suffering! At the same time, if the fact that we are... well...'

'An item?' Barbas suggested.

Ondolemar winced, _'Item_is such a crude, degrading term... Items are what one seizes while apprehending a criminal. Anyway, as I was saying, if our relationship is discovered, we shall both end up wishing we were dead'.

'I never wish I was dead,' Kiara piped in brightly.

'The point is,' Ondolemar was clearly beginning to lose his patience, 'We need a strategy - a way of spending time together that does not involve ridiculous mishaps or accidents or explosions...'

'Explosions?' Kiara echoed eagerly. 'Ooh, we haven't tried that one before'. A flash of venomous green from beneath Ondolemar's hood made her cut herself short and hurry to change the subject. 'Come on, Lemmie, don't get so upset! I have a perfect scheme planned! Came to me, why, a whole ten seconds ago! It is so packed full of simple awesomeness that I will bet this fabulous jazbay crostata,' she produced - seemingly out of nowhere - a round piece of pastry and brandished it in Ondolemar's face, 'That we will be able to smooch our tongues off right in the middle of the street, and no one will be the wiser!'

Ondolemar took advantage of a pause in her shrill, fast-paced oration to ask bewilderedly, 'You brought a jazbay crostata with you to our emergency meeting?'

'That I did,' Kiara nodded, beaming. 'Which reminds me: are you a fan of this delicious flavour?..' Having scrutinized Ondolemar's expression for a short while, she remarked, 'Looks like you aren't. Well, all the better for me then. It means I will get to eat the crostata either way, no matter if I win or lose the bet. But I will totally win. As sure as Ulfric Stormcloak doesn't like being Wabbajacked, I will win'.

* * *

'I can't believe I let you talk me into this,' Ondolemar said weakly, peering down at the narrow, maze-like, stone-paved streets of Markarth from the small bridge that Kiara had chosen as the site of her little experiment. 'If I am executed for treason, you will be executed with me'.

'Sure,' she gave him an eager nod. 'I've been planning for us to die side by side for a while now. Of course, it will have to be a violent death, because otherwise I'd have to become a Necromancer or a vampire to live as long as you guys do, and that's way too gross. Being one of those things, I mean, not living long. Although, it depends on the way you look at stuff. Take poor, poor Master Aren, for instance. He was over a hundred years old, and he'd spent most of that time feeling regretful about what he'd done to his best friends. Though it's not like he had any choice, given that there was a mean old Dragon Priest on the loose, but still...'

Ondolemar raised an ominous eyebrow. Kiara obediently let her tale of the adventure in the Labyrinthian go untold and set to work on making her 'scheme packed full of simple awesomeness' a reality.

She began by taking a deep breath, eyes half-closed, as though preparing for meditation. Then, she parted her lips, in a very deliberate, dramatically slow way, and uttered two words, in a tongue Ondolemar was sure he had never heard before, ''

* * *

The instant her voice trailed off into silence, the invisible cogs and wheels moving the world around them ground to a standstill. Through a bluish, flaky mist, the people of Markarth could be seen standing petrified in the streets: Hroki balancing herself on one foot in the middle of the market square, the other foot raised to make a step; Kerah bending over, her fingers inches away from her daughter's ear, about to give it a strong educational pinch; old Degaine throwing his head back, his tongue arched, waiting for the last droplet of mead from his grimy cracked mug to land inside his mouth; the smelter workers holding on to half-emptied shovels, heaps of coal hanging suspended in mid-air in front of them; Yngvar the Singer leaning against a wall, his expression brooding and sullen, lips pushed forward, about to let out a small spit projectile; Muiri reaching down towards a potion bottle which she has dropped on the pavement and which has just begun getting shattered...

But Kiara paid little heed to the peculiar pantomime being acted out in the streets below; she moved closer to Ondolemar, each strain of her muscles an eternity, and placed her hands on his robe buckles, and kissed him. The kiss was slow, frozen in time like everything around them, and thus all the more elating. Stunned, uncomprehending, inebriated by this new, prolonged sensation of their two beings moulding into one, Ondolemar wondered if perhaps this kiss could last forever... It did not. There finally came a point when the enchantment's dam broke, and the currents of time came rushing back, ringing deafeningly in their ears. Kiara parted her lips from his, and soon all was set in the intended order: Hroki strode across the square back to her parents' inn; Kerah grabbed hold of her daughter's ear and began telling her off for some prank or other; Degaine gulped down the last of his mead; the workers fed the smelter's fire with yet another shovelful of coal; Yngvar spat disdainfully on the cobblestones; Muiri squatted down, gathering into her skirt the shards of the potion bottle. And the Redguard girl and the Thalmor stood on the bridge, looking in different directions, as though they had nothing in common - nothing whatsoever.

* * *

'Well, what did I tell you?' Kiara asked triumphantly when they returned to the Keep. 'Those folks down there did not see a thing! I suspect they did not even feel I was tampering with time - because they were not in the epic centre or whatever it's called... Just like when a Psijic monk came to Winterhold! Such a funny word, Psijic - try saying it fast ten times... oh wait, you probably don't wanna hear that; you people don't like the Psijics too much, do you?'

_'How...' _Ondolemar asked hoarsely, almost burning the skin off her face with his intense glare, 'How in Oblivion did you cast that spell? Such magic is far beyond the capabilities of any human!'

'Oh, it wasn't magic!' Kiara replied light-heartedly. 'Well, not the kind of magic most folks are used to. It was a Shout'.

Ondolemar frowned, 'A Shout? You mean, like in one of those ludicrous Nord stories? What was it the rebels feed to the crowd... Ah, yes, that that heretic Ulfric used a Shout to kill the, uh, Tall King?'

'Shouts aren't stories!' Kiara objected, pouting her lips and stomping her foot in a rather childish display of indignation. 'They are real! And I know a whole bunch of them! As a matter of fact, I actually learned a new one while we were looking for your cannibal friend - but you were so busy whining and complaining that you didn't even notice!'

She took Ondolemar by the hand and, gazing deep into his eyes, added, quietly, earnestly, 'You know... It's high time I told you something really, really important...' Apparently, she was physically incapable of remaining serious for long, for she went on thusly, a mischievous spark dancing in the deep blue of her eyes, 'And it's not what girls usually say in such cases, either! Though that would be the cutest thing ever! I wonder what a half-blood Redguard-Altmer baby would look like... They say they usually take after the mom, but sometimes there're some traces of the dad's race, too... I would love ours to have your eyes; did I tell you have the most gorgeous emerald-gold eyes in the entire universe?'

'Is there a point to this?' Ondolemar mumbled faintly, stupefied by the sudden - no matter how jocular - revelation of Kiara's thoughts on half-blood babies... though wholeheartedly agreeing with the bit about his eyes.

'Yeah, sure,' Kiara said. 'The thing is... I am Dragonborn. You know, like Talos?'

* * *

Whatever comment Ondolemar was about to make, it stuck half-way in his throat, making him choke. Kiara gave him a soothing pat on the back.

'I know you are about start one of your tirades about Talos not being a god - which he is, and that's final - and me being a Stormcloak - which I totally considered becoming, but I just hate taking sides - and you needing to arrest me - which I know you won't do, because we've been through that before... But just listen to me, okay? Listen to your wise old Auntie Kiara - though you're probably, like, a hundred years older than me... Whoops - shouldn't ask an Altmer his age or weight, should I? Anyway, we have dragons flying around, doing their thing - and this is so much bigger than the war, and the Talos debate, and all that nonsense about elven supremacy! And my job is to set things back to the way they were - dragonless! Though some of these flying critters are really sweet... What I am trying to say is... ah, whatever, let me just show you, okay? I have a couple of friends waiting for me at a certain place here in the Reach - if you come along, you will see for yourself. You will understand. Just... Don't kill them. For me? Because I know you'll want to the moment you see them. They are Blades, after all.'


End file.
